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WOMEN IN 
AMERICAN HISTORY 



WOMEN IN 
AMERICAN HISTORY 



By 
GRACE HUMPHREY 

AUTHOR OF 

Illinois — The Story of the 
Prairie State 



£23 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 1919 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 



BRAUNWORTH tt CO. 

BOOK MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



m, 



4 1919 



©CI.A5254^9 



c 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGB 

I Pocahontas 1 

II Anne Hutchinson 18 

III Betsy Ross 30 

IV Mary Lindley Murray 40 

V Molly Pitcher 47 

VI Martha Washington 65 

VII Jemima Johnson . 72 

VIII Sacajawea 80 

IX Dolly Madison 101 

X LUCRETIA MOTT 115 

XI Harriet Beecher Stowe 132 

XII Julia Ward Howe 154 

XIII Mary A. Livermore 164 

XIV Barbara Fritchie 179 

XV Clara Barton 189 

Epilogue 207 

Bibliography 211 

Index 219 



I 



I 



WOMEN IN 
AMERICAN HISTORY 



Women in American History 

CHAPTER I 



o 



POCAHONTAS 
I595-1617 

NE cold stormy day, more than three hun- 
dred years ago, a group of Indians was sit- 
ting around the fire in a *'long house" on the James 
River in Virginia. Warriors and young braves, 
squaws and maidens, were listening to stories, 
while the children played about boisterously. 
Some of them were wrestling, some racing with 
dogs, and others turning somersaults in the long 
narrow passageway. 

Suddenly the deerskin curtains parted and in 
dashed an Indian runner. He spied the chief at 
the far end of the room near the fire and 
started toward him; but one of the children, a 
little girl named Mataoka, who was turning hand- 
springs, collided with him and knocked him down. 
A little girl she was, ten or eleven years old, with 

I 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

swarthy skin, black eyes and long straight 
hair, like all the other Indian girls; but she was 
distinguished among the group, for she was the 
daughter of the chief. 

"Child," said her father, "in your rough play 
you have knocked down your brother, the runner 
who has come with some message. That is not 
play for a girl. Why will you be such a little 
tomboy ?" 

At this all the Indians present took up the 
word tomboy and repeated it in the guttural Al- 
gonquin speech — pocahuntas, pocahuntas. And 
that nickname stayed with her all her life long. 

*T have news," said the runner, when he could 
get his breath. "I have great news," and he 
paused dramatically. "The white captain is 
caught !" 

What an excitement this created in the long 
house! Warriors and squaws crowded around 
the tired runner, eager to have the details of his 
story — how two hundred Indians, with the chief's 
brother at their head, had watched from behind 
the trees as the white captain, with an Indian 
guide, left his two men in the boat and went 

2 



POCAHONTAS 

ashore; how stealthily they lay in wait to attack 
him, in the heart of the deep woods; how they 
shot their arrows thick and fast, when the right 
moment came, till they saw the white captain seize 
the Indian and use him as a shield, while he slowly 
made his way back toward the boat ; how the In- 
dians were afraid they would lose their prey after 
all, but fortune favored them when the white man 
stumbled into a bog and was held fast by the slip- 
pery ground and the icy water ; and how, after he 
was nearly dead with the cold and had thrown 
away his arms, they took him prisoner. At first, 
said the runner, the braves wanted to kill him, 
but later thought it would be a better plan to lead 
him to the village where the whole tribe could 
rejoice in this triumph. 

All this Pocahontas, the little daughter of the 
great chief Powhatan, heard, and was deeply in- 
terested. For the plucky captain had saved his 
life by a device that was almost an Indian trick. 
So you may be sure she was there, the next day, 
when the noted prisoner was brought in. She was 
very proud of her father, who ruled over a league 
of nearly forty tribes, numbering some eight 

3 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORYi 

thousand people, as she looked up at him, 
sitting in state on a raised platform, dressed in 
raccoon skins, with all the tails left on, and wear- 
ing his splendid crown of red feathers. Proud, 
too, she was to be his favorite daughter. 

At the council Mataoka listened while the In- 
dians told how the prisoner had shot at their men, 
one of whom had since died. She was heavy- 
hearted when she learned the verdict, "Then he 
too must die — that is the Indian custom!" 
She watched while some young braves brought 
in two great stones and placed them in front of 
Powhatan. She saw them seize the prisoner, 
drag him before her father, force him down until 
his head was on the stones, and then tie his 
hands and feet. And all the time her heart went 
out to him, so fair, so friendly, so fine a man he 
was! 

Meanwhile John Smith, the white captain, not 
understanding what the Indians were saying, 
could only guess at his fate. He had often been 
near to death, in his adventurous life, and he 
thought now of some of his narrow escapes — of 
his fighting days in the Low Countries, in the Holy 

4 



POCAHONTAS 

Land against the Turks, and that wonderful day 
when he met the three Turkish champions in single 
combat, came out victorious, and was given a coat 
of arms. He thought of the times he had been 
robbed and shipwrecked, captured by Barbary pi- 
rates and sold into slavery. Yes, he had been 
close to death before. Would some providence 
save him this time? 

No, there were only forbidding looks on the 
swarthy faces around him, glances of hatred, 
contempt, of triumph. Smith, from his position 
on the ground, saw the chief motion to the execu- 
tioners, who brought in their great war clubs. 
Now they swung them up over their shoulders and 
stood ready for the word of command. Pow- 
hatan had opened his lips to speak when 
suddenly there was a commotion in the group 
as a little figure darted past the platform, slipped 
through deterring hands, and flung herself on the 
helpless prisoner. 

No girl's game now was the little tomboy play- 
ing, as she took John Smith's head in her arms 
and with her own body shielded him from death. 
The executioners stopped, uncertain what to do, 

5 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

for they were fond of the chief's daughter and 
would not harm a hair of her head. With flash- 
ing eyes she waved them back and pleaded with 
the stern Powhatan to spare the white captain's 
life. 

At once there was a scene of the wildest com- 
motion. There were shouts and threats and many 
cries of "Kill! Kill!" for the Indians feared the 
power of these newcomers and longed to drive 
them from the land. But the little Pocahontas was 
a chief's daughter and stood for her rights. Let 
them grant this enemy his life and adopt him 
into their tribe; for what harm had he done 
them? They ought to be friends. And she had 
her way. Powhatan raised his hand and when 
the clamor ceased, he spoke to the warriors who 
set the plucky paleface free. 

Mataoka smiled upon him and gave him many a 
look of wondering curiosity. Smith presented her 
with some trifling gifts and asked her name. Now 
it was the Indian custom never to tell a name to 
a stranger, lest it give him some magic harmful 
influence, so Powhatan replied that his daughter's 
name was Pocahontas. 

6 



POCAHONTAS 

This story is questioned by some historians be- 
cause Smith did not include it in his first pub- 
lished account of the Virginia colony, nor yet in 
the second, though he did praise the Indian girl. 
In a letter he sent to the English queen, years later, 
bespeaking for her the royal favor, he tells how 
Pocahontas saved his life and the colony as well. 

True or not, Pocahontas and Smith became 
warm friends and the kind-hearted little Indian 
girl was loyal and faithful to the settlement at 
Jamestown, and saved the colony more than once. 
Frequently she would go with her brothers, or 
some of her Indian attendants, carrying com or 
venison to the people who were in danger of 
starving — you remember how improvident those 
first colonists were, and how badly their affairs 
were managed ? Once she hid a messenger whom 
the savages planned to kill; she saved the life 
of a captured English boy ; three times she stole 
cautiously into Jamestown and warned her new 
•friends of threatened attacks ; and she told Smith 
himself of a trap laid to surprise him, while his 
party waited for promised provisions. 

*'Great cheer (corn) will be sent you by and 

7 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

by," she whispered, **but my father Powhatan and 
all the power he can make will come afterward, 
if the braves that bring the com dp not kill you 
when you are at supper. Hurry away! No, 
no," she added, refusing a compass he offered 
her, "I can no take. Indians see it. Powhatan 
kill me. If know I tell you, I am but dead." 

As quietly as she had come through the forest 
she slipped away, while the Englishmen, ready 
for the attack, returned in safety to Jamestown. 

In the autumn of 1609, tired of the endless 
quarreling and dissension in the colony, and 
sorely wounded by an explosion of gunpowder. 
Smith went back to England. Then Pocahontas 
made no more visits to Jamestown. Finally word 
came that Smith was dead and the little Indian 
girl grieved deeply. After this all friendship be- 
tween the red men and the whites ceased. The 
settlers were often greedy and selfish, frequently 
breaking their promises to the Indians who soon 
came to distrust, then to fear and at last to hate 
them. 

A British soldier, Captain Argall, half pirate 
and half trader, thought of a fine plan to per- 

8 



POCAHONTAS 

suade Powhatan, who was trying to starve the 
British out, to keep the peace. This was to get 
Pocahontas into their power, and the old chief 
would do anything to ransom her. Now the maid 
was visiting old Chief Japazaws and his wife on 
the Potomac River. And so Captain Argall won 
them to his scheme by promising them a wonder- 
ful copper kettle if they succeeded, and threaten- 
ing them if they failed. The squaw was to bring 
Pocahontas aboard his ship, lying at anchor in 
the Potomac. 

As they walked along the river bank the old 
woman said she had seen the English ships three 
times before, with their great sails like white 
wings, but she had never been aboard, and oh! 
how much she wanted to go ! Wouldn^t her hus- 
band take her? 

"No, no," he said sternly. 

And when she continued to beg, he threat- 
ened to beat her — all part of the plan! Poca- 
hontas with her tender heart was moved to pity 
and offered to go with her, if Japazaws would 
consent, which he did but only on condition that 
he accompany them. So the three of them paddled 

9 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

out to the ship, where they were well entertained 
and invited to a merry supper; after which the 
Indians with the precious kettle went ashore while 
Pocahontas was kept a prisoner. 

A message was sent to Powhatan that his de- 
light and his darling, Pocahontas, was a captive 
there at Jamestown and would only be released if 
he sent back all the Englishmen he held, all the 
tools and guns and swords he had taken or 
stolen, and a large amount of corn as a ransom. 
The maid had a long wait, for the chief made no 
reply for three months, torn between affection 
for his daughter and desire for the weapons; 
and then he sent back only seven Englishmen and 
a few guns. So the crafty Argall continued to 
hold her prisoner. 

Perhaps she liked the little town better than 
the smoky long house of her tribe, for she was 
treated with the greatest friendliness. From the 
very first she had been warm and cordial to the 
strangers. Now, an innocent, interesting pris- 
oner, she was honored and petted. Pocahontas 
had grown to be a woman and had learned the 
ways of English people. One of the settlers, 

10 



POCAHONTAS 

Master John Rolfe, who is described in the old 
records as "an honest and discreet gentleman of 
good behaviour," fell in love with her, for she 
was gentle and generous, pretty and graceful, al- 
together captivating — and she loved him in return. 

Rolfe consulted Governor Dale about this mar- 
riage and gained his approval. Powhatan also 
consented and sent his brother to give the bride 
away, and his two sons and several chiefs of the 
tribe to be present at the wedding. 

In the little church at Jamestown, Pocahontas 
was baptized and christened Rebecca. And early 
in April, 1614, she and John Rolfe were married 
there. The whole colony went to the cere- 
mony, for everybody was interested in the little 
hostage, and hoped great things from this 
union — peace with the tribes of red men, and 
plenty of trade — with Pocahontas as the bond to 
cement their friendship. They must all have re- 
joiced when a year later her little son was born, 
and felt saddened when the family moved out to 
Bermuda Hundred, a new plantation on the James 
River where Rolfe raised the first tobacco in Vir- 
ginia. 

ir 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Here her husband and Governor Dale and th« 
local minister devoted themselves to teaching her 
English and the Christian religion. She was 
eager to learn, for she liked civilized life, though 
the English customs were in great contrast to the 
Indian ways. In a short time Pocahontas became 
so well educated that she had no desire to return 
to her father. Then she had the greatest affection 
for her husband, and she dearly loved her son. 

When they had been married two years they 
started to England — Governor Dale, Pocahontas 
and Rolfe, the baby Thomas, and an old Indian 
named Tomocomo, whom Powhatan sent as a 
special guard for his daughter. If life in the 
colony seemed strange to the forest maid, what 
must this voyage have been? The great extent 
of the sea, the many ships, were a marvel to her. 
At Plymouth the governor of the town came to 
the wharf to bid her welcome to England. Her 
journey to London was almost a royal progress. 

Everywhere she was received with great honor, 
as a foreign princess. She was entertained at 
banquets and receptions. She went to the thea- 
ters. She was present at Twelfth Night when 

12 



POCAHONTAS 

Ben Jonson's masque was played; with Lady 
Delaware she was presented to the king and 
queen, who welcomed her with pomp and cere- 
mony. She carried herself as though she were the 
daughter of a king, and among all the ladies of 
the court none was a greater favorite, for her 
dark beauty and gentle modest ways won all 
hearts. 

The greatest excitement followed the travelers. 
Everybody was curious to see Pocahontas. 
Bishops and great lords and ladies drove in their 
coaches to call upon her. And in compliment to 
this princess from the new world many inns and 
taverns were called *'La Belle Sauvage," a name 
you will still find on old swinging signs in London 
Town. 

The shrewd old chief, Tomocomo, with his 
tawny skin and shining black hair, dressed in his 
war feathers and Indian robes, attracted almost as 
much attention. Powhatan had told him to count 
the men he saw in England, that the tribe might 
know the strength of their friends — or enemies? 
He had given Tomocomo a bundle of sticks where- 
on he should make a notch for each man he saw. 

13 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Long before the party reached London every stick 
was notched closely, and with' an Indian grunt of 
disgust which meant "My arithmetic fails me!" 
Tomocomo gave it up and threw away his sticks. 

John Smith had again been adventuring and 
exploring but now, returning to England, he heard 
every one talking of Pocahontas. Remembering 
old times and all he owed his little friend, he 
at once went to visit her. When Smith appeared 
she was greatly moved and for a long time could 
not speak. At last she said, "They told me you 
were dead!" 

She reproached him for calling her the formal 
"Lady Rebecca" and asked why he didn't call her 
his child, as he used to do? 

"But," said Smith, "the king has commanded 
that you be treated as a princess !" 

Pocahontas, as before, had her way, and the 
two good friends sat down for a long talk of the 
old days in Virginia, and all that had happened 
since their separation. 

Though she was so petted in England Poca- 
hontas did not really belong there. More and 
more her thoughts turned toward home. She 

14 



POCAHONTAS 

wearied of crowded London and longed for the 
forest again. Every day she would stand by the 
window, looking toward the west where Vir- 
ginia and her early life lay. She thought much 
of the old days, of the changes that had come 
to her and to her people, with the appearance of 
the fair-haired stranger and his Englishmen. 
Rolfe grew alarmed at her evident home-sickness, 
and feared she would fall ill with longing. But 
they must wait till the ship at Gravesend took 
on her supplies for the long trip to America, 
and was loaded with the many cases being sent 
to Virginia. 

At last, word came that all was ready and sail- 
ors were sent to take them aboard. But though she 
had set her face to the west, Pocahontas was not 
to return to America. A sudden weakness over- 
came her, gently she fell asleep, and at twenty- 
two in a foreign land, she died and was buried 
in the little church at Gravesend. 

Her son Thomas was educated in England by 
his uncle, a London merchant. But when he was 
grown he returned to Virginia, and among his 
descendants were many families of that state, 

15 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

proud to claim as their ancestor the tomboy 
Pocahontas. One of them was William Henry 
Harrison, president of the United States ; another 
John Randolph, of Roanoke, a man famous in his 
day, for many years a member of Congress in 
House and Senate. When he rose to speak there, 
his flashing black eyes and jet-black hair, his 
brown parchment-like face seamed with a thou- 
sand small wrinkles, his lean figure, with long 
arms and long bony forefinger, his bursts of bril- 
liant oratory, would remind people of his 
forebears, and they would say, "Yes, Ran- 
dolph boasts of the blood of Pocahontas in his 
veins." Years later, in our own century, another 
descendant, Edith Boiling Wilson, became mis- 
tress of the White House, the first lady in the 
land. 

Pocahontas is the first woman who made history 
in our country. Her story is full of romance, of 
adventure, of gentleness and daring courage. Far 
more she did than save Smith's life; for it was 
through her friendship with the English that the 
colony was supplied with food. It was her mar- 
riage that made possible, as long as Powhatan 

i6 



POCAHONTAS 

lived, peace between the two peoples. It was she, 
said John Smith, who saved Virginia from 
famine, confusion and death. 



CHAPTER II 

ANNE HUTCHINSON 
I59O-1643 

ANNE MARBURY was an English girl who 
lived in Lincolnshire, near the town of Bos- 
ton. Her father was a Puritan minister, preach- 
ing there and* in London. In Lincolnshire Anne 
passed her girlhood, doubtless hearing a great 
deal of theological controversy and religious 
discussion, for this was the time of the Puritan 
revolt in England, and of great religious excite- 
ment. Naturally intelligent and earnest, her men- 
tal powers were aroused and quickened. 

At an early age she married William Hutchin- 
son, "a very honest and peaceable man of good 
estate." And in 1634 with her husband and 
children she journeyed to America — the outcome 
of the Reverend John Cotton's leaving England 
because of his persecution by the bishops. Anne 
Hutchinson had been one of his most ardent dis- 
ciples in the church at old Boston, and was now to 
sit under him in the new Boston. 

18 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 

It was a pleasant voyage of seven weeks, in 
the good ship Griff en. There were over a hun- 
dred passengers, among them two ministers, so 
you may be sure there were sermons and prayers 
and religious discussions all during the crossing. 
Indeed Mistress Anne Hutchinson was so- out- 
spoken in her doctrines that, when they landed, 
one of these ministers reported her to the govern- 
or as holding dangerous beliefs. Though her 
husband was accepted at once, the colony leaders 
took a week's time to look into her liberal views, 
and then examined her rigorously before admit- 
ting her to membership in the church. 

For Massachusetts, you remember, was settled 
by Puritans who had met persecution in England, 
and had braved the dangers of the long voyage 
and the greater dangers of hunger and illness in 
a new land, in order to worship God in their own 
way. In accomplishing this they became as intol- 
erant as those from whom they had fled. Indeed 
there was a far closer relation of church and 
state in Massachusetts than in England. The 
only liberty the fathers allowed was the liberty 
to believe just as they believed. They were right, 

19 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

others were wrong, and on this theory they regu- 
lated everything, both reHgious and civil. 

Until their own house could be built, Mistress 
Anne Hutchinson and some of the children lived 
at the Reverend Cotton's ; and for the three years 
the family remained in Boston, their home was 
across the street from John Winthrop's. Al- 
most immediately this house became the social 
center of the town and Anne Hutchinson had a 
leading place among the three hundred inhabi- 
tants and the fast friendship of the brilliant young 
Englishman, Sir Harry Vane, then serving a term 
as governor of the colony. The women loved her 
for her goodness of heart, her cheerful neighbor- 
liness, her great skill in nursing. Both men and 
w^omen welcomed her intellectual and magnetic 
personality. She had a vigorous mind, a daunt- 
less courage, a natural gift for leadership; she was 
capable, energetic, amiable. 

And there was another reason why the women 
liked her. The colonists had two church services 
on Sunday, with sermons sometimes three hours 
long; Thursday lectures, and a Saturday night 
meeting. There was also during the week re- 

20 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 

ligious discussion for the men. Mrs. Hutchinson 
started meetings for women — a new departure, 
for never before had women met for independent 
thought and action. At first this won high ap- 
proval. The women — forty, sixty, sometimes 
eighty of them, even a hundred, for they came 
from near-by towns as well as from Boston 
homes — were soon holding regular meetings to 
review the sermons of the Sunday before, with 
Mistress Anne's comment and interpretation. 

"All the faithful embraced her conference," a 
contemporary record describes the gatherings, 
"and blessed God for her fruitful discourses." 

But from a review of the sermons to discussion 
and criticism of them and the ministers as well 
was a short step. It soon began to be said that 
Anne Hutchinson cast reproaches on those who 
preached "a covenant by works" instead of the 
"covenant by grace" in which she fervently be- 
lieved. Such freedom of speech could not be tol- 
erated by the good Puritans, and a theological dis- 
pute arose which threatened the very life of the 
colony. There were two parties, grace and works. 
Politics became a matter of Hutchinson opinions, 

21 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

for political lines and religious lines coincided ex- 
actly. Indeed there was no separation of church 
and state ; the leaders of one controlled the policy 
of the other. 

From the beginning of the colony the preachers 
had had an unlimited influence. Now they com- 
plained that "more resort to Mrs. Hutchinson for 
council about matters of conscience than to any 
minister in the country." Moreover this grace 
and works difficulty was carried into every phase 
of life. Some people turned their backs con- 
temptuously and walked out of meeting when a 
preacher not under a covenant of grace entered 
the pulpit Others interrupted the services with 
questions of controversy. Indeed it was carried 
so far that when the Pequot Indians became ag- 
gressive and dangerous and it was necessary to 
send troops against them, the Boston soldiers re- 
fused to be mustered into service, because the 
chaplain, drawn by lot, preached a covenant of 
works, and they disagreed with his Sunday ser- 
mon! The whole town of Boston, the whole 
colony of Massachusetts, church and state, were 
set in commotion and turmoil. This theological 

22 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 

quarrel was a stumbling block in the way of all 
progress. 

The ministers so freely criticized were embit- 
tered and determined to call Mistress Hutchinson 
and her doctrines to account. So they summoned 
a synod, all the clergymen and magistrates of 
Massachusetts, who' met in Cambridge for full 
three weeks, discussing some eighty-two opinions 
which they condemned — some as dangerous, some 
blasphemous, some erroneous, and all unsafe. 
The women's meetings were forbidden as "dis- 
orderly and without rule." 

Forbidden to speak in public Anne Hutchinson 
continued tO' hold meetings in her own house. 
Roger Williams, who was shortly to feel the full 
displeasure of the Puritan leaders, said that in 
view of her usefulness as a nurse and a neighbor, 
she ought to be allowed to speak when she chose 
and to say what she wished, "because if it be a 
lie, it will die of itself; and if it be truth, we 
ought to know it." 

The authorities in Massachusetts were in con- 
stant dread of losing their charter, which was 
especially endangered by reports of disorderly 

23 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

proceedings. And certainly nothing had pro- 
voked so much disorder and sedition as the course 
taken by Mistress Anne. Both poHtically and re- 
ligiously they felt it a duty to suppress her party. 
So in October, 1637, she was brought to trial 
before the General Court of Massachusetts, sitting 
in the meeting-house in Cambridge. 

"Mrs. Hutchinson," said Winthrop, presiding, 
"you are called here as one of those that have 
troubled the peace of the commonwealth and the 
churches here. . . . You have maintained a 
meeting and an assembly in your house that hath 
been condemned by the general assembly as a 
thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God 
nor fitting for your sex, and notwithstanding that 
was cried down you have continued the same. 
Therefore we have thought good to send for you 
to understand how things are, that if you be in 
an erroneous way we may reduce you that so you 
may become a profitable member here among us, 
otherwise if you be obstinate in your course that 
then the court may take such course that you may 
trouble us no further." 

This trial was at once a civil, judicial and 
ecclesiastical process, lasting through two long 
weary days. Extremely tiring and exhausting 
must have been the examination, for the deputy- 

24 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 

governor complained that they would all be sick 
from fasting ! The forty-three men who tried her 
were like an English court of High Commission, 
almost like the Inquisition. For Anne Hutchin- 
son had no lawyer. They even kept her standing 
until she almost fell from fatigue, before they 
allowed her to answer seated. 

Governor and deputy, magistrates and judges 
were arrayed against her. They examined and 
cross-examined her. They badgered and insulted 
and sneered at her. They browbeat and silenced 
her witnesses, in absolute disregard of fair play. 
Only one man of them all defended her, saying 
with spirit, 'There is no law of God that she 
has broken, nor any law of the country, and she 
deserves no censure." 

They found it no easy thing to make her trap 
herself. Their fine theological distinctions were 
familiar ground to her. She had a ready grasp of 
scriptural authority, and wonderful skill in using 
her intellectual power to prove her spiritual posi- 
tion. With the ability and clearness of a trained 
advocate she conducted her case, showing tact and 
judgment and self-reliance, and always with the 

25 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

"demeanor of a lady. What Winthrop described 
as her "nimble wit and voluble tongue" never de- 
serted her, though she was hard pressed by the 
keenest minds of the colony. 

When they failed to prove her women's meet- 
ings opposed to the Bible, they fell back on the 
argument of their authority and said, "We are 
your judges, and not you ours, and we must 
compel you to it." 

When she answered to some of their questions, 
"That's matter of conscience, sir," stern Governor 
Winthrop replied, "Your conscience you must 
keep, or it must be kept for you." 

It was the deputy-governor who summed the 
whole matter up: 

"About three years ago we were all in peace. 
Mrs. Hutchinson from that time she came hath 
made a disturbance. . . . She hath vented 
divers of her strange opinions and hath made 
parties. . . . She in particular hath dispar- 
aged all our ministers. . . . Why this is not 
to be suffered, and therefore being driven to the 
foundation and it being found that Mrs. Hutchin- 
son . . . hath been the cause of what is fal- 
len out, why we must take away the foundation 
and the building will fall." 

26 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 

The result of the trial might have been an- 
nounced before it opened. Read how the court 
record finishes : 

"Governor Winthrop : The Court hath already 
declared itself satisfied concerning the things you 
hear, and concerning the troublesomeness of her 
spirit, and the danger of her course amongst us, 
vi^hich is not to be suffered. Therefore if it be 
the mind of the Court that Mrs. Hutchinson, for 
these things that appear before us, is unfit for our 
society, and if it be the mind of the Court that 
she shall be banished out of our liberties, and im- 
prisoned till she be sent away, let them hold up 
their hands," 

All but three held up their hands. 

"Governor Winthrop: Mrs. Hutchinson, you 
hear the sentence of the Court. It is that you are 
banished from out our jurisdiction as being a 
woman not fit for our society, and you are to be 
imprisoned till the Court send you away. 

"Mrs. Hutchinson: I desire to know where- 
fore I am banished. 

"Governor Winthrop: Say no rnore. The 
Court knows wherefore, and is satisfied." 

Semi-imprisonment Mistress Anne had all that 
winter, in the house of a man in Roxbury whose 
brother was one of her most bitter enemies. She 

27 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

was sent up to Boston to be admonished by the 
elders of the church ; and when she refused to sign 
an absolute retraction of her opinions, and would 
not promise to hold any more meetings, she was 
excommunicated. 

The sentence of banishment was carried out in 
March of 1638. To the sorrow of many of the 
colonists, William Hutchinson went with his wife. 
He refused their invitations to remain, saying, 
"For I am more dearly tied to my wife than to 
the church. . . . And I do think her a saint 
and servant of God.'' With husband and children 
and seventy friends Mistress Anne went to Rhode 
Island where Roger Williams offered the party a 
friendly refuge. From the Indians they bought 
an island, for ten coats, twenty hoes, and forty 
fathoms of white wampum ; and lived there until 
,1642 when William Hutchinson died. 

Hearing a rumor that Massachusetts was trying 
to extend her control over Rhode Island, the set- 
tlers left for a new site in the Dutch colony to. the 
west. A year later a friendly Indian one morning 
visited Anne Hutchinson's* house. Seeing that 
the family was defenseless he returned that night 

28 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 

with others of his tribe, killed the sixteen mem- 
bers of the household and set fire to the buildings. 

When Governor Winthrop heard of this mas- 
sacre he declared that ''the bare arm of God 
displayed itself in her death." Ministers in Massa- 
chusetts announced it a divine judgment support- 
ing their verdict. One of them wrote, *'God's 
hand is more apparently seen herein to pick out 
this woful woman to make her and those belong- 
ing to her an unheard-of heavy example above 
others." But Mistress Anne's friends charged 
the guilt of her murder upon the colony and de- 
clared it was the judgment of the Lord on Mas- 
sachusetts. 

An able woman, clever, brilliant, possibly in- 
discreet in her criticism of the ministers, Anne 
Hutchinson's life was a strange mixture of con- 
secration and conflict, of kindliness and conten- 
tion, with a tragic end. She was fighting the first 
battle in a long series to be fought out in America 
— for religious toleration and for freedom of 
thought and speech, for liberty of conscience, for 
a true democracy in religion. 



I 



CHAPTER III 

BETSY ROSS 
I 752- I 836 

N 1752 the eighth child was born in the Quaker 
family of Griscom in Philadelphia, and was 
named Elizabeth. Nine other children came after 
her, so with a total of sixteen brothers- and 
sisters you may be sure she never had much 
opportunity to be lonely. Perhaps the large number 
of children is the explanation for her being ap- 
prenticed at Webster's, the leading upholstery es- 
tablishment in the city. There Elizabeth became 
acquainted with John Ross, one of her fellow- 
apprentices; their friendship grew to love, and 
when she was twenty-one they were married. 
Now John Ross was the son of an Episcopal 
clergyman and because of that fact Elizabeth was 
"disowned" by the Friends for her marriage. 

Soon afterward they left Webster's and opened 
a little upholstery shop of their own, in a two- 
story house on Arch Street^ — a quaint little house 
that was old then, for it was built of bricks that 

30 



BETSY ROSS 

came over to America as ballast in one of William 
Penn's vessels. It is still standing, in a good 
state of preservation, and very little changed from 
the old days, with its wide doors, big cupboards, 
narrow stairs and tiny window-panes. The front 
room was the shop, where Elizabeth and John 
waited on customers ; and next to this was the back 
parlor. 

Now Elizabeth Ross was not only an energetic 
and trained upholsterer, she was also the most 
skilful needlewoman in Philadelphia, and had a 
great reputation for embroidering and darning. 
There was a story current of a young lady visiting 
in the city, who wanted an elaborately embroid- 
ered frock mended. She was directed to take it 
to Mistress Betsy Ross. And the owner said, 
when it was finished, that the darning was the 
handsomest part of the gown ! Considerable ar- 
tistic skill had Betsy, too, for she could draw free- 
hand, very rapidly and accurately, the complicated 
designs used in those days for quilting. Withal 
she was a thoroughly efficient housekeeper. 

The happiness of the Ross family was not to 
last long. The spirit of liberty w^as awakening 

31 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

among the colonists, the spirit of resistance to the 
demands of the mother country. In common 
with many patriotic women, Betsy Ross saw her 
husband march away for mihtary service. With 
several other young men he was guarding cannon 
balls and artillery stores on one of the city 
wharves along the Delaware River, when he re- 
ceived a serious injury, from the effects of which 
he died in January, 1776, after long and anxious 
nursing on the part of his young wife. He was 
buried in the Christ Church burying-ground ; and 
in that historic old Philadelphia church you can 
still see the Ross pew, marked with the Stars and 
Stripes. 

There was Betsy Ross, a widow at twenty- four. 
She determined to maintain herself independently, 
if possible, and to continue alone the upholstery 
business they had developed together. About 
five months after her husband's death, some 
time between the twenty-second of May and the 
fifth of June, she was one day working in the 
shop when three gentlemen called. 

The first was General Washington, in Phila- 
delphia for a few days to consult the Continental 

32 



BETSY ROSS 

Congress. Mistress Ross had frequently seen 
him, for the story is that he had visited her shop 
more than once, to have her embroider the ruffles 
for his shirts, an important branch of fine hand- 
sewing in those days. With him was Robert 
Morris, to go down in history as the treasurer 
and financier of the Revolution ; and her husband's 
uncle, Colonel George Ross, a signer of the Dec- 
laration of Independence. 

These gentlemen had come to consult her. She 
knew, of course, how the various banners carried 
by troops from the different colonies, as well as 
by different regiments, had caused confusion and 
might mean danger. It was time to do away with 
the pine tree flag, the beaver flag, the rattlesnake 
flag, the hope flag, the silver crescent flag, the 
anchor flag, the liberty tree flag, and all the rest 
of them, and have a single standard for the Amer- 
ican army. Betsy Ross had heard, too, of the 
Cambridge flag, often called the grand union flag, 
which Washington had raised the New Year's 
day before, a flag half English, half American, 
with thirteen red and white stripes, and the crosses 
of St. George and St. Andrew. But since the first 

33 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

of the year events had moved rapidly and the 
desire for separation from England had become 
steadily stronger. A new flag was needed, to 
show the growing spirit of Americanism — which 
was soon to crystallize on the fourth of July. 

All this Betsy Ross knew, as a good patriot 
would. And she could not have been greatly 
surprised when General Washington said they had 
come to consult her about a national flag. 
*'Can you make a flag?" he asked. 
Modestly and with some diflidence she replied, 
"I don't know, sir, but I can try." 

Then in the little back parlor Washington 
showed her a rough sketch he had made — a square 
flag with thirteen stripes of red and white, and 
thirteen stars in the blue canton. He asked her 
opinion of the design. With unerring accuracy 
of eye she saw at once what was needed to make 
the flag more beautiful, more attractive. She sug- 
gested that the proportions be changed, so that 
the length would be a third more than the width ; 
that the thirteen stars should not be scattered 
irregularly over the canton, but grouped to form 
some design, say a circle or a star, or placed in 

34 



BETSY ROSS 

parallel rows; and lastly that a five-pointed star 
was more symmetrical than* one with six points. 

"But," asked Washington, "isn't it more diffi- 
cult to make?" 

In answer practical Betsy Ross took up a 
piece of paper, folded it over, and with one clip 
of her scissors cleverly made a perfect star with 
five even points. 

That was sufficienjt, and the general drew up his 
chair to her table and made another pencil sketch, 
embodying her three suggestions. The second 
sketch was copied and colored by a Philadelphia 
artist, William Barrett, a painter of some note, 
who returned it to Mistress Ross. Meantime 
not knowing just how to make a flag, for it must 
be sewed in a particular way, she went to a 
shipping merchant, an old Scotchman who was a 
friend of Robert Morris, to borrow a ship's flag 
as a guide. 

And in this way Betsy Ross made the first Stars 
and Stripes. To try the effect, the new flag was 
run up to the peak of one of the vessels in the 
Delaware River, the story goes, a ship commanded 
by Paul Jones; and the result was so pleasing 

35 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

that on the same day the flag was carried into 
Congress and approved. At the same time the 
Congress passed a resolution putting Paul Jones 
in command of the Ranger. 

"The flag and I were born the same day and 
hour/' Jones used to say. "We are twins, we 
can not be parted in life or death. So long as 
we can float, we shall float together. If we must 
sink we shall go down as one.'* 

It was not until June 14, 1777, that the Con- 
tinental Congress passed a resolution formally 
adopting this flag as the national standard, a res- 
olution reported to have been introduced by John 
Adams. Another and unexplained delay fol- 
lowed, for not until September was this resolu- 
tion publicly promulgated. 

The fact that Betsy Ross was not named in the 
Congressiofial Record has been considered by 
some sufficient evidence that the whole story 
is a myth. But there is no Congressional 
record whatever about the Cambridge flag, which 
was used for almost a year. Is it surprising then 
that its modification was not put on record 
promptly ? There was no newspaper notice of the 

36 



BETSY ROSS 

resolution of June fourteenth, the basis of our 
modem flag day. And in all the letters and 
diaries and writings of the time, there is- found 
no mention of this flag resolution. Betsy Ross 
had made the flag months earlier, and all that 
time it had been gradually coming into use. Does 
not that explain the apparent* lack of interest? 
This story she told, over and over and over, 
to her daughters and grandchildren, and in later 
years they wrote the account down, just as they 
had heard it from her, and as you have read it 
here. 

We know too from other records that before 
the flag was officially adopted by Congress, Eliza- 
beth Ross was engaged in flagmaking. For in 
May of 1/77 the state navy board of Pennsylvania 
passed an order to pay her the sum of fourteen 
pounds, twelve shillings and two pence, for mak- 
ing ships' colors for the fleet in the Delaware 
River. And immediately after the resolution did 
pass, she was authorized to proceed at once to 
manufacture a large number of flags for the Con- 
tinental Congress. 

For more than fifty years Betsy Ross continued 

Z7 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

to make government flags, with her daughters and 
nieces, and later her grandchildren, helping her. 
She continued to sew red and white stripes to- 
gether and put five-pointed stars on the blue can- 
ton, even after her second marriage to a sea cap- 
tain, while he went back and forth to Europe on 
his dangerous business, and during his imprison- 
ment in England, where he died. When his friend, 
who had been a fellow-prisoner, was finally re- 
leased and returned to Philadelphia to deliver to 
Betsy Ross her husband's little property, she 
married this messenger and kept on making flags. 
Except for a brief residence with her daughter, 
she continued to live in the quaint little house on 
Arch Street where the flag was born. Shortly 
before her death she became completely blind ; but 
her busy fingers must keep on stitching, and with 
her little grandsons to sort the colors for her, she 
sewed happily on carpet rags. 

When Mistress Ross retired from the business 
of making flags her daughter Clarissa took over 
this work and carried it on until 1857. Flags 
of many kinds they made^ — for army and navy, 
for arsenals and the merchant marine; flags with 

38 



BETSY ROSS 

thirteen stars in a circle, like a round-robin to 
show that one state should have no precedence 
over the others; flags with stars in parallel rows 
of four, five and four; flags with fifteen stripes 
and stars ; flags bearing the arms of Pennsylvania, 
painted on the silk by William Barrett. 

It was George Washington, more than any 
other, who seems to have been most interested in 
the question of a national flag. But it was to the 
skilled needlewoman that he took his first rough 
design, to have her opinion of its worth. It is to 
Betsy Ross that much of the beauty of our flag 
is due. A true patriot of Revolutionary times, 
her humble life is an incentive to others, showing 
that there is more than one way to serve the 
nation — even if one is known only as a maker of 
ruffles. 



E 



CHAPTER IV 

MARY LINDLEY MURRAY 
1 720 1 782 

XCEPT for one day's events the story of 
Mrs. Murray is quickly told. A famous 
Quaker belle in Philadelphia was the beautiful 
Mary Lindley. After her marriage to Robert 
Murray, a merchant, she lived near Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania, and in North Carolina, until in 1753 
they moved to New York City, where Murray and 
Sansom soon became one of the great merchan- 
dising firms of the time. There were a dozen 
children in the Murray household, one son being 
Lindley Murray, the grammarian. Hoping the 
milder climate would benefit her husband's health, 
Mrs. Murray took her family to England where 
they lived for eleven years, returning to America 
during the first year of the Revolution. 

Always a belle, she is described as a lady of 
great dignity and stateliness of manner, mild and 
amiable, quick at repartee. She and her daugh- 
ters were ardent patriots, but Mr. Murray, the 

40 



MARY LINDLEY MURRAY 

rich merchant and landowner, was not unnaturally 
a Tory, loyal to the Crown. Shortly before peace 
was made with England, after the success at 
Yorktown had crowned Washington's efforts for 
America, Mrs. Murray died. 

But on the fifteenth of September, 1776, Mary 
Lindley Murray gave aid to Washington , her con- 
tribution to the War for Independence being 
woman's wit and beauty. That September was 
a dif^cult month for the patriots. At the end of 
August had come the British victory at the battle 
of Long Island, and Washington's skilful retreat 
to Manhattan. As usual Howe was dilatory in 
following and not until sixteen days later did he 
cross with his troops. 

The fifteenth of September was a hot day. 
From their country house on a hill near the center 
of Manhattan Island the Murrays looked down on 
the new breastworks thrown up at Kip's Bay. 
They knew the Americans were scattered — the 
main force at the north on Harlem Heights, and 
Putnam's men far to the south. Then up the 
East River sailed five British men-of-war and 
anchored opposite the Murray house, in the bay. 

41 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Before the handful of militiamen had time to 
wonder why the ships had come, out swarmed a 
number of dories. To the Murrays, watching 
from the hill half a mile away, the river seemed 
suddenly dyed scarlet, for under cover of the war- 
ships' guns eighty-four boats landed the British 
soldiers, while up the bank clambered four thou- 
sand Redcoats, driving the Americans before 
them. At the first fire, the Continentals fled from 
their trenches back to higher ground, fled in head- 
long retreat. 

Four miles to the north Washington heard the 
booming of cannon and galloped down to the scene 
of action. To his astonishment and consterna- 
tion his men were flying in all directions. Riding 
excitedly into the midst of the runaways he 
shouted, "Take to the wall! Take to the corn- 
field!" His attempt to rally them was vain. 
Chagrined he would have ridden straight into 
danger, had not an aide seized his horse's bridle 
and turned the general back toward safety. In 
great confusion and disorder the post at the bay 
was deserted. And there were Putnam's divisions 
to the south, separated from the main army, 

42 



MARY LINDLEY MURRAY 

caught in a trap if the British* threw their men 
across the island. 

Now this was exactly General Howe's plan, but 
he failed to count Mrs. Murray into his scheme. 
From the bay he marched west for a half-mile 
until he came to the Murray house. Set in a wide 
lawn, with extensive gardens on either side, 
"Belmont" was considered one of the loveliest 
spots on the island. Its fair mistress had heard 
the firing, had seen the disorderly retrfeat and 
realized what the Americans needed most of all 
was time. She would make it for them! 

She posted a maid in the cupola of the great 
square mansion, with orders to report to her by 
signals how Putnam was progressing. It was a 
season of extreme drought, and the dense clouds 
of dust made it easy to follow his march. At the 
proper time Mrs. Murray sent a negro servant 
with a. cordial invitation to General Howe and 
his staff to dine with her. This genial Quaker 
lady was not unknown to the Britishers, for they 
had met her in England. Here was an opportu- 
nity to renew the acquaintance of peaceful days, 
but duty first, for a general. 

43 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

*1 do thank you, madam," was Howe's cour- 
teous reply, *'but I must first catch that rascally 
Yankee, Putnam." 

*'Did thee not hear he had gone?" was her quick 
rejoinder. *lt is too late to catch him. Pursuit 
is hopeless. Thee had better come in and dine." 

If Putnam was really out of reach there was 
no need for haste, and the day was sweltering. 
So across the broad veranda and into the cool 
attractive house went Howe, with Clinton and 
Cornwallis and Governor Tryon, and others of 
his staff. Outside, in the hot September sun, his 
men rested and prepared and ate their midday 
meal. Within, Mrs. Murray and her beautiful 
daughters proved charming hostesses, with a 
warm welcome for their English guests. The 
good merchant, who was known to be heartily 
loyal to the king, was not at home that day, but 
his rare old Madeira was served with dainty cakes 
after the dinner. 

So witty and delightful was the talk, so keenly 
did the others enjoy Tryon's raillery of their 
hostess about her patriot friends and how the 
ragged Continentals had run that morning, that 

44 



MARY LINDLEY MURRAY 

not one of them noticed the rapid flight of time. 
And you may be sure that Mistress Murray pro- 
longed their stay, bearing the teasing with rare 
good humor and making herself thoroughly agree- 
able, for every moment gained would count. 

Meanwhile, half a mile to the west, Putnam was 
hurrying northward, his march greatly ham- 
pered by his cannon, his camp impedimenta, and 
the refugee women and children. Terribly they 
suffered from the heat. Alexander Hamilton gal- 
lantly led one company. A young major, Aaron 
Burr, acted as guide, for he knew every foot of 
the ground ; riding back and forth he showed the 
patriots bypaths and lanes through the thickets, 
until ahead they saw Washington's tents on the 
heights of Harlem, and knew they were safe. 
Through Mrs. Murray's hospitality the British 
had lost their chance to take four thousand pris- 
oners. Her own wit and her husband's wine had 
saved the day. 

Behind the Harlem entrenchments the patriots 
were ready for Howe's attack the following morn- 
ing, and a' spirited encounter that was in the buck- 
wheat field. But the British failed to capture the 

45 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

heights and so force Washington off the island. 
Counted only by the number of men engaged, this 
was really not a great battle, but it was a great 
victory for the Americans who had lost heart 
after their defeat on Long Island and their forced 
evacuation of New York. It restored their con- 
fidence and put new hope into their hearts. It 
clinched Washington's determination and made 
possible the brilliant exploits at Trenton and 
Princeton. 

In Revolutionary journals kept by American 
and British soldiers you will find Howe's delay at 
the Murray home given as the reason for Put- 
nam's escape. And it was a common saying 
among the Americans that the beautiful Quaker 
lady had saved "Old Put," the wolf-killer, and 
his four thousand men. For patriotism and 
courage do not exist only behind a bayonet. One 
can be heroic in any way that conquers circum- 
stances. 



CHAPTER V 

MOLLY PITCHER 

MARY LUDWIG, the daughter of a German 
settler, was born on a small farm between 
Princeton and Trenton in New Jersey. Her father 
was a dairyman and Molly, like other children of 
her parentage, was brought up to work hard. A 
typical German • peasant girl, heavy-set, strong 
and sturdy, she toiled in the fields, she milked 
the cows, and drove them to pasture. The story 
is that she could swing a three-bushel sack 
of wheat to her shoulder and carry it to the up- 
stairs room of the granary; and this strength 
and endurance stood her in good stead years later, 
for after the battle of Princeton she picked up a 
w ounded soldier, carried him two miles to a farm- 
house, and there nursed him back to health. 

A Mrs. Irvine from Carlisle, visiting in 
Trenton, wished to take a young girl home with 
her to help in the housework. She saw buxom 
Molly Ludwig, liked her honest face and whole- 

47 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

some, energetic appearance, and on her return 
took the German girl with her. For some 
years Molly lived with Doctor and Mrs. Irvine, 
and proved to be a valuable assistant in their home. 
She did not like sewing, but she was expert at 
scrubbing and scouring and washing — any kind 
of violent exercise ! 

Near the Irvines' house was a little barber shop 
kept by an Irishman, John Hays. Whenever 
Molly was scrubbing the front steps or scouring 
the door-knocker, the young barber was sure to 
be watching from his window. When the girl 
was about sixteen years old, this courting ended in 
marriage. 

Then suddenly Carlisle heard the news of Lex- 
ington, nothing but war was talked of. Doctor 
Irvine, who had served in the French and Indian 
campaigns, was colonel of a Pennsylvania regi- 
ment. Hays went as gunner in the artillery, and 
when his time was out reenlisted under Colonel 
Irvine. 

*T'm proud to be a soldier's wife/* was Molly's 
answer when he told her he must go. "I'll stand 
by you !" But neither of them guessed that this 

48 



MOLLY PITCHER 

would literally come true. No slacker, she 
waved him a cheerful good-by, and went on with 
her household duties for Mrs. Irvine. But when 
a few months later Hays sent her word to go 
back to her father's, as the troops were encamped 
near by and he could see her occasionally, she 
too said, "I must go," and rode off behind the 
messenger. At home again Molly donned her 
rough farm garments, helping with the cattle, 
working in the fields as before. And frequently 
John Hays paid a flying visit to the little farm, 
and Molly occasionally went to visit him in camp. 

During the Revolution it was not unusual for 
wives to accompany their soldier husbands, not to 
fight, but to wash and mend and cook, to care for 
the sick and wounded. Once while Molly was 
cooking for the men, she had a large kettle over 
the fire which she wanted to remove, so she 
called to a passing soldier to help her. His 
prompt compliance and kindness of manner made 
her ask his name, and she was so astonished that 
she almost dropped the kettle when she heard his 
reply, "I am General Washington." 

Hays and Doctor Irvine were both soldiers. 
49 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Molly's heart was with them and with the country, 
fighting for independence. All she needed was 
the opportunity to show of what mettle she was 
made. This came at the battle of Monmouth 
Court House. 

After the winter's drilling at Valley Forge, 
Washington followed closely behind Clinton, who 
was marching across New Jersey from Philadel- 
phia. The British had an enormous amount of 
baggage and their line was twenty miles long. 
The Americans waited for the chance to attack. 
Cornwallis brought his men into line of action 
opposite Lee, who ordered a retreat. Washing- 
ton's angry rebuke to Lee, plus the splendid work 
of Mad Anthony Wayne and Lafayette and Knox 
and Greene, saved the day for the patriot army. 
Lee's record was stained by this traitorous action. 
The outstanding hero of the day was Molly Hays. 

It was a very hot June Sunday. The blazing 
sun beat down on both armies with scorching, 
record-breaking heat. Men and horses were well- 
nigh overcome. The Americans, however, had 
the advantage, for they were dressed for summer 
weather and had left their packs by the meeting- 

50 



MOLLY PITCHER 

house at Freehold. The British had heavy 
woolen uniforms and full knapsacks. The Hes- 
sians carried in addition to all this the load of 
decorations which Frederick the Great thought 
necessary for his soldiers. 

,The air was sultry. Not a leaf stirred on the 
maple trees. Men dropped fainting to the earth, 
from sunstroke. Yet the American guns were 
fired vigorously, sending their shot across the 
swamp into the British ranks, and until night the 
battle went on. Sometimes under shelter, some- 
times under fire, Molly Hays went back and forth 
to the spring, carrying water for the suffering 
men, and for wetting the sponges to swab out the 
cannon. And the weary thirsty soldiers, welcom- 
ing the sight of her with the sparkling water, 
would call out gratefully, "Here comes Molly 
with her pitcher!" a call soon shortened to **Molly 
Pitcher!" 

On one of her trips from the well Molly saw 
her husband fall suddenly. Accounts differ as 
to whether he was wounded, or had a sunstroke 
working in the blistering heat near the cannon. 
General Knox, in charge of the battery, had no 

51 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

competent man to put in Hays' place and was 
about to withdraw the gun, when Molly sprang 
forward, seized the rammer and fired. A moment 
was sufficient to show that she could fill her hus- 
band's position, that she had the strength and 
nerve for his task. The men cheered as she 
loaded and fired shot after shot, with the skill of 
a veteran gunner. Her hair disheveled, her eyes 
blazing, her hot face begrimed with powder and 
smoke and dust, barefooted like many of the sol- 
diers, she kept on with her perilous work. That 
night the British stole silently away, leaving their 
dead and wounded, with Washington in posses- 
sion of the field. This victory was the last battle 
of importance in the North, the beginning of a 
brighter period for the Americans. 

The story of Molly Pitcher's brave act spread 
through the camp. General Greene thanked her, 
*'in the name of the army." The next morn- 
ing in her dusty, torn, powder-stained dress, she 
was presented to Washington. With such honor 
as he would have shown to one of his gallant 
men, he spoke a few w^ords of sympathy and 
praise, gave her a sergeant's commission, and later 

52 



MOLLY PITCHER 

placed her name on the Hst of half-pay officers for 
life. 

An old Revolutionary rhyme tells the story : 

"Moll Pitcher she stood by her gun 
And rammed the charges home, sir; 
And thus on Monmouth's bloody field 
A sergeant did become, sir." 

Hays was the proudest man in the army, at 
Washington's praise of his wife, when he heard 
the soldiers cheer her to the echo. Lafayette 
asked if his men "might have the pleasure of 
giving Madame a trifle," and invited Molly to 
review his troops. Between two long lines of 
French officers she passed, and at the end her 
hat was filled with gold crowns. 

Until the close of the Revolution, Molly Hays, 
or Molly Pitcher, as she was always called, re- 
mained with the army; and following her hus- 
band's death, shortly after the war ended, she 
lived for many years at the Carlisle barracks, 
cooking and washing for the soldiers. In 1794 
she saw General Washington again, for when he 
was traveling through Pennsylvania, he stopped 
near Carlisle, and Molly Pitcher made a pil- 

53 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

grimage on foot to see him. When her story 
was recalled to the general he greeted her most 
cordially. 

In 1822 the legislature of Pennsylvania, with- 
out a dissenting voice, voted her the sum of forty 
dollars, and an annuity of that amount during her 
lifetime. When she died ten years later, she was 
buried with military honors, a company of sol- 
diers firing a salute. On the Fourth of July, 1876, 
there was unveiled at her grave a white marble 
monument inscribed to "Molly Pitcher, the hero- 
ine of Monmouth.'* And each year on the thirtieth 
of May, along with the score of Revolutionary 
graves in the churchyard, hers is decorated with 
flowers by the people of Carlisle. 

In the little park at Freehold a monument was 
erected to commemorate the victory of Monmouth 
Court House, and on one of its five panels Molly 
Pitcher is shown, barefooted, ramming home the 
charge, her husband lying exhausted at her feet. 
She was a real heroine, when the need came, a 
true and courageous soldier. 



CHAPTER VI 

MARTHA WASHINGTON 
I732-1802 

ON a great Virginia plantation in the year 
1732 Martha Dandridge was born. Her 
father was a prominent landowner and his daugh- 
ter had the usual education of the time — not much 
schooling in comparison with to-day, but she 
learned to play the spinet, to dance gracefully, and 
to sew with all the mysteries of elaborate stitches. 
A well-behaved, pretty child she was who at fif- 
teen made her debut in Williamsburg, the capital 
of Virginia, which then afforded the gayest social 
life in America. Dressed in a stiff bodice and 
flowered petticoat, Martha was the belle of the 
ball, and of many succeeding ones as well, for at 
once she became a great favorite. 

When she was barely eighteen she married 
Daniel Parke Custis, a wealthy landowner, who 
was more than twenty years her senior. They 
lived near Williamsburg at his country home, the 

55 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

"White House." Seven years later he died, leav- 
ing her with two young children and a great for- 
tune — thousands of pounds and thousands of 
acres of Virginia land. 

In May, 1758, Mrs. Custis was visiting at 
Major Chamber lay ne's, when her host brought an 
unexpected guest — none other than young Colonel 
George Washington, already a military hero and 
commander of the Virginia troops. He was en 
route to Williamsburg to report to the governor 
on the needs of his regiments, and when Major 
Chamberlayne pressed him to stop, he had at first 
refused, but yielded when told that the prettiest 
and richest widow in all Virginia was there. 

He would stay for dinner then, but must go on 
at once, and gave orders accordingly to his 
servant. Bishop, bequeathed to him by General 
Braddock. But when dinner was over and the 
horses were brought round no Washington ap- 
peared, though Bishop had never known his mas- 
ter to be late before. In the drawing-room the 
young colonel and the young widow were talking, 
oblivious to everything else, while the impatient 
steeds pawed the drive restlessly. Till the day 

56 



MARTHA WASHINGTON 

was done and twilight at hand Washington 
loitered. 

*'No guest can leave my house after sunset," 
said the major, and insisted that he must stay the 
night. Late the next morning Bishop and his 
master rode away to Williamsburg. The little 
widow in the white dimity frock, with the cluster 
of May-blossoms at her belt, and the little white 
cap half covering her soft, wavy brown hair, had 
completely captivated the soldier. His business in 
the town completed, he rode on to the ''White 
House." 

*'Is your mistress at home?" he asked the negro 
who met him at the ferry. 

"Yes, sah," was the reply, and the man added, 
his white teeth flashing in a broad smile, 'T reckon 
you's the man what's 'spected !" 

Evidently he was, for when, on the follow- 
ing day, Washington left for camp and the west- 
ern campaign against Fort Duquesne, the two were 
engaged. 

In January, 1759, when they had met just four 
times, Mrs. Custis and George Washington were 
married. A brilliant scene the wedding was. The 

57 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

guests included wealthy planters and their wives 
and daughters, all very grand in their satins and 
brocades, English officers in army and navy uni- 
forms, the governor of Virginia, in scarlet em- 
broidered with gold, with a bag wig. The groom 
wore a blue suit, the coat lined with scar- 
let silk and trimmed with silver, an embroidered 
white satin waistcoat, with knee and shoe buckles 
of gold ; while in contrast to his six feet two was 
the little bride in a petticoat of white quilted satin, 
with an overdress of white corded silk interwoven 
with silver threads, high-heeled satin shoes with 
diamond buckles, point lace ruffles and pearls. At 
the door, attracting almost as much attention as 
the wedding party, stood Bishop in his red coat, 
holding his master's chestnut horse. 

With her three bridesmaids Mrs. Washington 
drove to her home in a coach and six, while her 
husband and a group of his friends rode beside 
them. Thus began their forty years of married 
life. 

After a few months in Williamsburg, to settle 
the business of the Custis estate and to attend the 
meetings of the House of Burgesses, of which 

58 



MARTHA WASHINGTON 

Washington had been elected a member during 
his campaign against the French, he took his bride 
to Mount Vernon, his eight-thousand acre planta- 
tion on the Potomac River. Here they planned to 
live quietly, he busy with his fields and flocks, she 
with the large household, and both enjoying the 
growth of the Custis children. In a white apron 
and cap, with a bunch of keys jingling at her side, 
Mrs. Washington supervised the busy kitchen and 
slave quarters, looked after the strict training and 
the lessons of the children, and was a charming 
hostess to their guests. 

But public affairs changed and with them this 
quiet happy life. The stamp act and oppressive 
taxes stirred the colonies. Like many patriot 
women, Martha Washington ceased using tea at 
her table, ceased to buy English cloth and other 
goods of English manufacture. No less than six- 
teen spinning-wheels were kept busy at Mount 
Vernon, and on the looms homespun was woven 
for the family's clothing and for the large num- 
ber of slaves. 

Rapidly events moved to a crisis. The first 
Continental Congress was called, and Washington 

59 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

elected as one of Virginia's three delegates. When 
the party started north Mrs. Washington saw 
them off with these words of wifely appreciation, 
*'I hope you will all stand firm. I know George 
will. God be with you, gentlemen." 

And this was not idle talk on her part, for she 
foresaw plainly the consequences. At the many 
discussions and debates which had occurred at 
their home, for and against English policy, she 
had said little, but had listened intelligently. She 
summed it up in writing to a friend : 

''Dark days and darker nights, domestic happi- 
ness suspended, social enjoyments abandoned, 
property put in jeopardy — but what are all these 
evils when compared with the fate of which the 
Port Bill may be only a threat ? My mind is made 
up, my heart is in the cause." 

The second Congress met the following May 
and Washington was unanimously chosen com- 
mander-in-chief of the army. He wrote this news 
to his wife at Mount Vernon, adding that he 
hoped to return in the autumn. Instead he then 
invited her to come to him in Cambridge, but care- 
fully pointed out the difficulties of the journey. 
Unhesitating, undismayed, a true soldier's wife, 

60 



MARTHA WASHINGTON 

she set out for the long trip to the North, as though 
it were the most natural thing in the world to 
leave the ease and security of her southern home 
and spend the winter in a New England camp on 
the outskirts of a city held by the enemy. 

The coach with its four horses, and postillions 
in white and scarlet livery, attracted great atten- 
tion. In the country people rushed to doors and 
windows to get a sight of her. In the towns she 
was met by escorts of Continental soldiers, the 
ringing of bells, and enthusiastic cheering. With 
a mingled feeling of pride and wonder this little 
woman, who had never been out of Virginia, real- 
ized what it was to be the wife of General 
Washington. 

This was a real farewell to the quiet planta- 
tion and the beginning of her public life. 
Except for the year when Trenton and Princeton 
and active winter campaigning made it too dan- 
gerous for women to be present, it was Martha 
Washington's custom to join her husband when 
the army went into winter quarters, and to march 
back home when work opened with the spring. 
Thus she heard the first and Ust gun of every 

6i 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

campaign, and described herself as a perambulator 
for those eight years. 

Because she was the wife of the general, it did 
not follow that she could live in luxury. In Cam- 
bridge to be sure headquarters were in the Craigie 
House, later the home of the poet Longfellow ; and 
here Mrs. Washington had some social life, with 
the wives of the Harvard professors. But in 
other places lodgings were often very, very un- 
comfortable, "a squeezed-up room or two." At 
Valley Forge a log cabin was built — near a 
Quaker farmhouse where the Washingtons had 
two rooms — ^to serve as a kitchen and dining- 
room ; but when this same plan was proposed for 
the headquarters at Morristown, no lumber was 
available! At Newburgh their inconvenient din- 
ing-room had one window and seven doors, and 
the sitting-room was so small that when Wash- 
ington entertained a French officer, the guest had 
to sit on a camp bed. 

Martha Washington's presence lessened the 
general's cares and broke the monotony of the 
long anxious winters. She was always a delight- 
ful hostess and even with camp limitations her 

62 



MARTHA WASHINGTON 

hospitality and genial manner reminded her 
guests of Virginia. Nearly every day some of 
the young officers and their wives were invited 
to dinner, the General and Mrs. Washington sit- 
ting side by side, while Alexander Hamilton 
carved. 

Martha Washington was always a simple, dig- 
nified woman, as a group of Morri'stown ladies 
who went to call upon her testified. Having heard 
that the general's wife was a very grand lady, 
they wore their best bibs and bands, and most 
elegant silks and ruffles. Mrs. Washington, in a 
plain homespun dress and a "specked" (checked) 
apron, received them very graciously, a half knit 
stocking in her left hand, the ball of yarn in her 
pocket. After the usual compliments were over, 
she resumed her knitting. 

"And there we were," described one of the 
women afterward, "without a stitch of work, and 
sitting in state, but General Washington's lady 
was knitting socks !" 

She showed them two dresses of cotton and 
silk, woven at Mount Vernon, the stripes made 
from ravelings of brown silk stockings and old 

63 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

crimson damask chair covers. She took pains 
to tell them that the livery of her coachmen was all 
homespun, save for the scarlet cuffs, made of 
English material imported long before the war. 

After that visit, work for the soldiers, rather 
than fine feminine clothes, became the fashion in 
Morristown. 

At another New Jersey headquarters Washing- 
ton was staying at a private house, whose mis- 
tress one day saw a coach drive up to the door, 
with ten dragoons as the escort. Out stepped a 
plain little woman dressed in brown homespun, 
wearing a hood; over her bosom was folded a 
large white kerchief. She must be a maid, 
thought the hostess, until she saw General Wash- 
ington greeting her, and inquiring about the chil- 
dren, and his favorite horses at Mount Vernon. 
The general's wife, dressed like that ! 

Everywhere the soldiers loved Lady Washing- 
ton, as they called her. During the sad winter at 
Valley Forge, when the army was in desperate 
straits, suffering greatly from lack of food and 
blankets and clothing, and the consequent con- 
stant sickness, she went to share the soldiers' pri- 

64 



MARTHA WASHINGTON 

vations and make a spot of cheer in their dreary 
hves. She arrived in a rough farm sleigh, hired 
from the innkeeper at the forks of the Brandywine, 
where the deep snow had forced her to abandon 
her coach. Stanch patriot that she was, she made 
hght of inconveniences and discomforts and hard- 
ships ; and never was a woman busier than Martha 
Washington, all that dismal winter. In a cloak 
and hood, with her basket on her arm, she went in 
the deep snow from hut to hut, carrying deli- 
cacies for the sick and consolation for the dying, 
and by her sympathy and generosity stimulating 
the loyalty and courage of the men. ''God bless 
Lady Washington!" was frequently heard, when 
her kind, motherly face appeared. 

Day after day she assembled in her two rooms 
the wives of the ofBcers, to knit and patch, and 
make new garments whenever materials could be 
secured. No more embroidering and spinet play- 
ing, and other light accomplishments ! The work 
these women did at Valley Forge was far-reach- 
ing in its effects. News of it spread to Phila- 
delphia, where the British were having a gay 
winter, and the patriotic ladies there commenced 

65 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

making shirts for the soldiers, and ultimately con- 
tributed nearly three thousand garments. Small 
in amount, perhaps, in comparison with such serv- 
ice to-day ; but Martha Washington was a pioneer, 
anticipating the work of the Sanitary Commission 
and the American Red Cross. 

Officers, soldiers and women, all were steadied 
by her serenity and unwavering faith. And when 
the middle of March brought better times, she led 
in the camp gaiety. The news of the French alli- 
ance was celebrated with a grand review. The 
soldiers cheered for the king of France, for the 
thirteen states, for their general; then there 
came shouts of "Long live Lady Washington!" 
and a thousand hats were tossed into the air in 
the excitement. 

Yorktown and victory, and the end of the war 
in sight, but Washington must remain on duty 
until peace was actually signed. Martha Wash- 
ington was present, sitting in the gallery of the 
old capitol at Annapolis, when he resigned his 
commission; and together they drove to Mount 
Vernon, arriving on Christmas Eve. Standing at 
the door of his cottage to welcome them was old 

66 



MARTHA WASHINGTON 

Bishop, dressed in the scarlet regimentals he had 
worn at Braddock's defeat. All the servants and 
slaves assembled, and such a Christmas celebra- 
tion as Mount Vernon had ! 

More than all else the Washingtons longed for 
quiet days on their plantation, to enjoy the rest 
they so much needed. But there were guests innu- 
merable, so that Mount Vernon was described as 
a well-resorted tavern. When he had been home 
almost two years, Washington wrote in his diary, 

*'Dined with only Mrs. Washington, which I 
believe is the first instance of it since my retire- 
ment from public life." 

This furlough, as the general used to speak 
of it, was not destined to continue overlong. The 
federation of the states proved too weak a govern- 
ment, and Washington must go to Philadelphia 
for months, to sit as president of the Constitu- 
tional Convention. Then after the people had 
ratified the Constitution, there came one day riding 
up the broad drive at Mount Vernon the aged 
secretary of Congress, with a letter notifying 
George Washington that he had been elected presi- 
dent of the United States. 

67 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

"I little thought when the war was finished," 
wrote Martha Washington, *'that any circum- 
stances could possibly have happened which would 
call the General into public life again. I had an- 
ticipated that we should have been left to grow old 
in solitude and tranquilHty together. That was 
the first and dearest wish of my heart . . . 
Yet I can not blame him for having acted accord- 
ing to his ideas of duty in obeying the voice of 
his country." 

Alone to New York for the inauguration went 
George Washington, wearing a homespun suit 
woven at Mount Vernon. When his wife, 
likewise dressed in homespun, followed a few 
weeks later, her welcome all along the journey 
was second only to his. She entered many a town 
between two long columns of Revolutionary sol- 
diers ; and at New York City she was rowed across 
the bay by thirteen oarsmen dressed in white, 
while the guns fired thirteen rounds and crowds 
cheered her. 

As the president's wife, Martha Washington 
was hostess for the nation, entertaining distin- 
guished citizens and foreigners, cabinet officers 
and congressmen, presiding at the state dinners 
and giving public receptions every Friday, where 

68 



MARTHA WASHINGTON 

plum cake, tea and coffee were served. The 
guests were always dismissed before nine, with 
her grave, frank little formula, 'Tor the general 
always retires at nine, and I usually precede him." 
The need over, she laid aside her homespun and 
dressed in silk, satin, velvet and lace, as became 
the wife of the president. 

People criticized Mrs. Washington for the cere- 
mony in force at her levees, saying they were too 
much like those of royalty. Guests were shocked 
because they had to stand, while the truth was, 
the rooms would not have contained a third 
enough chairs. Presided over by the Washing- 
tons, the executive mansion combined with the 
most ardent patriotism a dignity and elegant mod- 
eration that would have honored any European 
court. They saved the social life of a new country 
from both the crudeness and bald simplicity of 
extreme republicanism, and from the luxury and 
excesses often marking sudden elevation to jx)wer 
and place. And in all these social functions Mrs. 
Washington never joined in any political discus- 
sion. Though the letters between her and her 
husband were filled with talk of public affairs, she 

69 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

was never once heard to utter any opinion on im- 
portant questions of state ; and in this, as in many 
details of her Hfe, she is a worthy model for any 
American woman whose husband is in public 
service. 

The year in New York was followed by similar 
years in Philadelphia, after the capital was moved 
there. The second term of the presidency over 
and a third term refused, the Washingtons gladly 
returned to Virginia ; their joy being evidenced in 
this letter: 

'T can not tell you how much I enjoy home, 
after having been deprived of one so long, for our 
dwelling in New York and Philadelphia was not 
home, only sojourning. The General and I feel 
like children just released from school or from a 
hard taskmaster, and we believe that nothing can 
tempt us to leave the sacred roof tree again, ex- 
cept on private business or pleasure. I am fairly 
settled down to the pleasant duties of an old-fash- 
ioned Virginia housekeeper, steady as a clock, 
busy as a bee, and cheerful as a cricket." 

Happily they lived at Mount Vernon two years, 
until the general's death. During his brief illness 
Mrs. Washington never left his room. 

" 'Tis well," were his last words. 
70 



MARTHA WASHINGTON 

"Is he dead?" she asked, so gentle had been the 
change. '' 'Tis well. All is over now. I shall soon 
follow him. I have no more trials to pass 
through." 

She moved up to a little attic room whose win- 
dows looked out toward his grave, and beyond to 
the waters of the Potomac which he had so loved. 
Surrounded by her grandchildren and great- 
grandchildren, cheerful in her sorrow and loneli- 
ness, she survived him two years, and when she 
died, was buried beside him in the simple brick 
tomb at Mount Vernon. 

A woman not wise nor great perhaps in any 
worldly sense, Martha Washington had those 
qualities of heart that make a noble rounded char- 
acter. A devoted and loyal wife, a tender mother, 
an earnest Christian, she was fitted to be the 
chosen companion of ''the greatest of our soldiers 
and the purest of our patriots." Serene and 
kindly, in the familiar white cap and kerchief, she 
has become the nation's ideal of the president's 
wife, our country's first hostess. 



o 



CHAPTER VII 

JEMIMA JOHNSON 
I753-1S14 

F Jemima Johnson, pioneer and volunteer, I 
can tell you very little. Just this one in- 
cident has come down to us, but you are surely 
right in thinking that the rest of her life was in 
harmony with this day's heroism. 

It happened in Kentucky, when the Revo- 
lutionary fighting was almost ended, but before 
peace had come to the frontier. Raid after raid 
on isolated settlements was made by the Indians, 
stirred up continually by the British in Canada. 
People were murdered and tortured with shock- 
ing barbarity, for once started the red men could 
not be controlled. Chief among them were the 
Wyandottes, a tribe that stood first for military 
skill and ferocious valor, and with them was the 
notorious renegade, Simon Girty, whose name was 
a byword and a hissing along the frontier. 

Bryan's Station was a Kentucky settlement of 

72 



JEMIMA JOHNSON 

forty cabins connected by strong palisades, set in a 
clearing with thick woods all around. One Au- 
gust day in 1782 messengers arrived, say- 
ing that the Indians were threatening to attack a 
neighboring fort and asking for aid. The men at 
Bryan's made ready to go and at dawn Captain 
Craig had finished his preparations when he dis- 
covered a group of savages in full view, just on 
the edge of the woods. There were only a few of 
them, and being out of rifle range they were ex- 
posing themselves carelessly and indifferently. 

^They're trying to attract our attention," Craig 
immediately said to himself. "Do they think that 
because they're few we'll leave the fort and pur- 
sue them ?" 

Their actions made him suspicious, for he had 
been trained in Indian fighting in the school of 
Daniel Boone. He ordered the relief party to 
wait while he called the principal men of the sta- 
tion to a council. They agreed that it was only a 
feint on the part of the savages to invite an attack, 
and that the main fight would come from the 
other side. They would meet one trick with an- 
other and beat the Indians at their own game. 

7Z 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

But the siege would be severe, perhaps long. 
Nothing could be done until they had a supply of 
water — and the spring was not inside the pali- 
sade, as was the frontier custom, but a short dis- 
tance away, near the very spot where the red men 
were hiding in the thick woods. The night before 
only the ordinary amount of water had been 
brought in. The buckets were empty, and it was 
a hot August day. Life inside the stockade, even 
though there were no battle, would be unendur- 
able. Captain Craig thought a moment, then 
called up the women and children, and told them 
his plan. 

"Will you, you women and you children who 
are large enough, go down to the spring, with 
every bucket you can carry, and bring back water? 
Our lives depend upon it. We think the Indians 
are hidden near the spring, waiting. Now if 
you'll go, just as you do every morning, I 
think they'll not molest you, for that would break 
up their plan. As far as we can we'll cover you 
vdth our rifles. You see, don't you, that this is 
our only hope? If we men go to the spring, it 
would be so unusual that it would rouse their sus- 

74 



JEMIMA JOHNSOiM 

picions at once ; and if we were shot down, there 
would be no one to save the fort and you. Will 
you go?" 

They were quick to appreciate the situation. Of 
course Captain Craig might be all wrong in his 
theory. The savages might capture the women 
and children, right under the eyes of the men in 
the fort. No one could tell what they might do. 
It was a terrible state of affairs. They knew what 
capture meant — death by torture. They had not 
lived on the frontier for nothing. A shudder of 
terror went through the group. 

Water we must have. 

The men can't go for it. 

We women will. 

Such were the steps Jemima Johnson's thoughts 
took, and instantly she volunteered. The Spartan 
daughter of a fearless pioneer, the sister of others, 
the wife of another, Jemima Suggett Johnson was 
also the mother of five little children, and her hus- 
band was away in Virginia. But she was the first 
to offer to go. 

Quickly she gave her orders : Betsy, who was 
ten, was to go with her; Sally, to look after the 

75 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

two little boys as well as watch baby Richard, in 
his cradle. Now who would go with her for the 
water ? 

Armed with wooden dippers, the wives of the 
Craig brothers and their children volunteered. 
Others quickly offered. Captain Craig opened the 
gate and out they marched after Captain Johnson 
■ — twelve women and sixteen children — true 
helpmates of those sturdy frontiersmen. They 
were nearly overcome with terror, yet they 
laughed and chatted as they tramped down the 
hill some sixty yards to the spring. A few of the 
younger ones found it hard to hide their agitation, 
but Jemima Johnson's steadiness and cool com- 
posed manner reassured them and completely de- 
ceived the savages. 

Within a stone's throw the Indians were con- 
cealed, and with eager covetous eyes watched 
the women filling their buckets. It took some 
time to dip up water for so many, but Captain 
Johnson had said each must wait until they were 
all ready to start back. Then deliberately they 
made their way up the hill to the fort, and not 
a shot was fired, for the Indians, in the hope of 

76 



JEMIMA JOHNSON 

carrying out their original plan, did not betray 
their presence. 

Some of the children, as they neared the gate, 
broke into a run and crowded into the door of the 
stockade, but only a Httle of the precious water 
was spilled. With sighs of relief the fifty men in 
the fort saw their wives and children safe again, 
and the supply of water stored away. 

Then Captain Craig began to carry out his part 
of the scheme. Thirteen of his men were sent 
to the front of the fort, to engage the Indians 
there, with as much noise and confusion as pos- 
sible. This, he guessed, was the signal agreed 
upon for the main body of savages to attack at the 
back of the stockade. So at the loopholes there he 
posted the rest of his men, with strict orders 
to make no move, to fire not a gun, till he gave 
them word. Hearing the noise at the front of 
the fort, the Indians near the spring dashed from 
cover and up to the back wall, which they sup- 
posed was undefended. They shouted their sav- 
age war cries, expecting an easy victory. Then 
suddenly the stockade bristled with rifles, and a 
steady fire was poured into the Indians massed 

77 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

for the attack. With cries of terror they fled to 
the woods; but all day long the firing continued. 
Deaths in the fort were very few, but any Indian 
who exposed himself was sure to be killed by the 
unerring shot of a frontiersman. Two savages 
climbed a tree, to fire from there, but were quickly 
dislodged. They shot burning arrows up into the 
air, to fall on the roofs of the buildings, but the 
plucky children put out the fires as fast as they 
were started. Betsy Johnson even tossed one ar- 
row off baby Richard's cradle. The women who 
had brought the water that made this long defense 
possible, molded bullets and loaded rifles, repaired 
breaches in the palisade, and sometimes took their 
places at the loopholes. 

At last the Indians decided their efforts could 
not succeed, so they killed the cattle, burned the 
fields of grain, and made the country look like a 
desert. Then they stole away in the night. 

Thus Bryan's Station was saved, due in large 
measure to Jemima Johnson and her party of 
women who brought in the water. Years 
later the baby Richard commanded the Kentucky 
regiment whose brilliant charge decided the battle 

78 



JEMIMA JOHNSON 

of the Thames. He, it was believed, killed the 
Indian chief Tecumseh. And this same son of 
Jemima Johnson became vice-president of the 
United States. 



D 



CHAPTER VIII 

SACAJAWEA -i^K^. 

1 790- 1 884 

URING the last years of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, in an Indian village along the banks 
of the Snake River, just west of the Bitter Root 
Mountains, in what is now the state of Idaho, a 
little girl was bom. She was named Sacajawea 
(Sah-cah"-jah-we'ah), which in English means 
"Bird- woman." Of her early life there is lit- 
tle to tell. She doubtless lived as did the rest of 
her tribe, grinding com into meal, providing the 
food, always out-of-doors, alert and resourceful. 
When she was about nine years old the 
Shoshones (or Snake Indians, as they were some- 
times called) were attacked suddenly by their 
hereditary foe, the Minnetarees of Knife River, 
They hastily retreated three miles up-stream and 
concealed themselves in the woods, but the enemy 
pursued. Being too few to contend successfully, 
the Shoshone men mounted their horses and fled, 

80 



SACAJAWEA 

while the women and children scattered, but were 
soon captured. Sacajawea tried to escape by 
crossing the river at a shallow place, but half-way 
over was taken prisoner. 

Eastward the captives were hurried, to a Min- 
netaree village near the present city of Bismarck, 
North Dakota, and here the girl Sacajawea was 
sold as a slave to Toussaint Chaboneau, a French 
half-breed, a wanderer and interpreter for the 
Northwest Fur Company. When she was about 
fourteen, an age considered womanhood among 
the Indians, Chaboneau married her. 

In October of that year, 1804, there was much 
excitement in the village. Up the river from the 
south came a great boat, filled with white men, 
who, finding a good site for their camp on an 
island not far from the Minnetaree wigwams, 
landed, built a number of log huts and remained 
throughout the winter. From all the region round- 
about the inquisitive Indians were continually vis- 
iting these white men whose errand was strange 
though peaceable. Not to make war, but to travel 
far to the west had they come. Among their sup- 
plies were many things about which the savages 

81 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

were curious. The squaws particularly were at- 
tracted by a mill that would grind their maize, en- 
viously comparing its ease and speed with their 
slow methods. They longed for many articles in 
the white men's packs, and were glad to barter 
their corn for blue and white beads, for rings and 
for cloth. There was constant trading, and many, 
many were the questions asked about the great 
unknown country to the north and west. 

A Canadian half-breed served the two white 
leaders of the party as interpreter. They also 
talked through Chaboneau, who knew both French 
and an Indian dialect, and who one day pointed 
out Sacajawea to them saying proudly, **She my 
slave, I buy her from de Rock Mountain, I make 
her my wife." When they heard who the Bird- 
woman was, they invited her and her husband to 
go with them on their long journey. He could 
interpret for some of the tribes, she for the Sho- 
shones, for she had not forgotten the language of 
her childhood. 

On the eleventh of February Sacajawea*s son 
Baptiste was born, and a merry little papoose he 
proved to be. The travelers started west on 

82 



SACAJAWEi^ 

the seventh of April, Chaboneau accompanying 
them, and Sacajawea carrying her baby, not quite 
two months old ; every step of that five-thousand- 
mile journey she carried him, so that he was the 
most traveled papoose in the land. 

Taking the Bird- woman* with them wa' -^n ex- 
tremely wise measure on the part of the leaders, 
Lewis and Clark. Her presence was a sure guar- 
antee that their intentions were peaceful, for no 
Indian tribe ever took a woman in their war par- 
ties. For the whole group of men the pres- 
ence of this gentle, virtuous, retiring little woman 
and her baby must have had a softening, human- 
izing effect, greater than they were aware. Near 
the fire she would sit, making moccasins and 
crooning a song in her soft Indian monotone, 
while the baby toddled about, the two giving a 
touch of domesticity to that Oregon winter. 

There were many heroes of this journey to the 
Far West, but only one heroine — this modest, un- 
selfish, tireless squaw. With the strongest of the 
men she canoed and trudged and climbed and 
starved, always with the baby strapped on her 
back. Long dreary months of toil she endured 

83 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

like a Spartan. Instead of being a drag on their 
progress she was time and again the inspiration, 
the genius of the expedition. And in their jour- 
nals both Lewis and Clark gave her frequent credit 
for her splendid services and frankly acknowl- 
edged in terms of respect and admiration their 
indebtedness to her. 

One May afternoon when the travelers had been 
five or six weeks on their journey and were mak- 
ing good time with a sail hoisted on their 
boat, a sudden squall of wind struck them. The 
boat nearly went over, for Chaboneau, who was 
an interpreter and not a helmsman, lost his head, 
let go the tiller and called loudly to God for mercy. 
The water poured in and the boat was almost cap- 
sized before the men could cut the sail down. Out 
on the stream floated valuable papers and instru- 
ments, books, medicine, and a great quantity of 
merchandise. Always plucky in trouble, Saca- 
jawea, who was in the rear, saved nearly all of 
these things, which were worth far more than 
their intrinsic value, since to replace them meant a 
journey of three thousand miles and a year's 
delay. No wonder that Clark added, when speak- 

84 



SACAJAWEA 

ing of the quick action of the Bird-woman, *'to 
whom I ascribe equal fortitude and resolution 
with any person on board at the time of the 
accident." 

Soon after this, from the tenth of June to the 
twenty- fourth, Sacajawea was very ill. One of the 
white captains bled her, a process that must have 
seemed strange to the Indian girl, but from their 
journals one can see that excellent care was taken 
of her. The party must continue on its way, so 
she was moved into the back part of the boat 
which was covered over and cool. All one night 
the Bird-woman complained, refusing the medi- 
cine offered her, while Qiaboneau made constant 
petition to be allowed to return with his squaw. 

The leaders were concerned for Sacajawea for 
they knew enough of medicine to see that her case 
was serious. And they were also concerned for 
the expedition's sake, for she was their sole de- 
pendence to negotiate with the Shoshone Indians 
on whom they relied for help. Lewis therefore 
determined to make camp till she was entirely re- 
stored. He persuaded her to take some laudanum 
and herbs and two days later wrote in his diary: 

85 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

"Indian woman much better today. Contin- 
ued same course of medicine. She is free from 
pain, clear of fever, her pulse regular, eats as 
heartily as I am willing to permit her of broiled 
buffalo well seasoned with pepper and salt and 
rich soup of the same meat." 

The next day she improved rapidly, sat up for a 
time and even walked out. But alas! this brief 
period of convalescence Sacajawea evidently 
thought sufficient, and the following morning she 

"walked out and gathered a considerable quantity 
of white apples of which she ate so heartily in 
their raw state, together with a considerable quan- 
tity of dried fish without my knowledge that she 
complained very much and her fever returned. I 
rebuked Chaboneau severely for suffering her to 
indulge herself with such food, and gave her di- 
luted nitre and thirty drops of laudanum." 

The next day, however, she appeared to be in a 
fair way for recovery, walking about and fishing, 
so the party again started westward. 

Nine days later, while Clark, Chaboneau and 
Sacajawea were making a portage, they noticed 
a black cloud coming up rapidly in the west. 
Hunting about for shelter they found a ravine 
protected by shelving rocks. Clark had laid aside 

86 



SACAJAWEA^ 

his gun and compass, the Bird-woman her baby's 
extra clothes and his cradle, when suddenly rain 
fell in such a torrent that it washed down rocks 
and earth from higher up the gorge. A landslide 
followed but just before the heaviest part of it 
struck them, the white captain seized his gun in 
one hand and with the other dragged Sacajawea, 
her baby in her arms, up the steep bank. Cha- 
boneau caught at her and pulled her along, but 
was too frightened to be of much help. 

Down the ravine in a rolling torrent came the 
rain, with irresistible force, driving rocks and 
earth and everything before it. The water rose 
waist high and before Clark could reach the high- 
er ground had ruined his watch. The compass 
and the cradle and the baby's clothes were washed 
away. By the time they reached the top of the 
hill the water was fifteen feet deep in the ravine. 
Anxious lest little Baptiste take cold and fearful 
that Sacajawea should suffer a relapse, Clark 
hurried the group to camp with all possible speed 
and gave the Indian woman a little spirits to re- 
vive her. 

Toward the end of July they came to a country 

87 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

which Sacajawea knew. At first she was guided by 
instinct, Hke a homing bird. Then she began to 
recognize familiar landmarks, for this was where 
she had lived as a little girl. Both as guide 
and interpreter she was now the leading individual 
in the party, and of invaluable service. Often the 
white men could not see plainly the buffalo paths 
and Indian trails, but she divined them immedi- 
ately. During her childhood she had traveled this 
road often, for it was the great resort of the Sho- 
shones who came there to gather quamash and to 
trap the beaver. 

Reaching the three forks of the Missouri River 
she advised that they follow the southern branch, 
as that was the route her tribe always took when 
crossing into the plains. One of their camps, 
the Bird-woman said, was on the very spot where 
she herself had been taken prisoner. 

"She showed no distress at these recollections,'* 
comments the record, "nor any joy at the prospect 
of being restored to her country, for she seems to 
possess the folly or philosophy of not suffering 
her feelings to extend beyond the anxiety of hav- 
ing plenty to eat and a few trinkets to wear." 

But that Sacajawea had no emotions was 

88 



SACAJAWEA 

clearly a mistaken inference, for the journal, a 
few days later, has an interesting story to tell. 
Hoping to find an Indian trail that would lead to 
a tribe which could supply them guides and horses, 
they landed, resolved to succeed if it took a 
month's time. It seemed a forlorn search, but at 
all costs these two necessities must be had. 

With Chaboneau and his wife, Clark was walk- 
ing along the shore, the Indians a hundred yards 
ahead, when Sacajawea began to dance and show 
every mark of the most extravagant joy, turning 
round to the white captain, pointing to several 
Indians approaching them, and sucking her fin- 
gers to show that they belonged to her tribe. Sud- 
denly a woman made her way through the crowd, 
ran toward her and embraced her with the most 
tender affection. Companions in childhood, they 
had been taken prisoner at the same time and had 
shared captivity. Finally the one had escaped, 
while the other was left to be sold as a slave to 
the half-breed interpreter. A peculiarly touching 
meeting this was, for they had scarcely hoped ever 
to see each other again, and now they were renew- 
ing their friendship. 

89 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

The two white captains meanwhile had a long 
conference with the Shoshone chief. After smok- 
ing together, gifts were exchanged. Then in order 
to converse more intelligently, Sacajawea was sent 
for. She sat down and began to translate, when, 
looking intently at the Indian chief, she recognized 
him as her brother. Jumping up she ran to him, 
embraced him, threw her blanket over him and 
wept. The chief himself was moved. Sacajawea 
tried to go on with her work of interpretation, but 
seemed overpowered by the situation and was fre- 
quently interrupted by tears. 

Cameahwait, the Shoshone chief, agreed to aid 
the white men, giving them horses and guides, 
in which business Sacajawea was of the great- 
est help. She had a long talk with her brother, 
telling him of the great power of the American 
government, of the advantages he would receive 
by trading with the whites, and completely won the 
good will of her nation as she did that of other 
tribes they met. She persuaded her people to 
make the white men's journey through their 
country possible. 

Now the chief wealth of the Shoshone Indians 
90 



SACAJAWEA 

was in their small wiry horses, fleet and sure- 
footed. Fine presents the white chiefs gave in 
exchange for pack-horses — an axe, a knife, a 
handkerchief and a little paint, all for one horse. 
As long as the supply of kettles held out, a kettle 
and a white pony were considered an even trade. 
Sometimes instead of the coveted kettle Clark 
would give a sword, a hundred bullets and pow- 
der, with some additional small articles. Once 
three horses were bargained for with one of the 
Indians, who left, the proud possessor of a chief's 
coat, handkerchiefs, a shirt, leggings and a few 
arrow points. One day after many wares were 
offered in exchange for otter skins, Sacajawea 
gave the precious beads which she wore around 
her waist. 

The Bird- woman was invaluable also as an in- 
terpreter. The captains would speak in English, 
which was put into French by one of the men, 
Chaboneauthen repeated it in the Minnetaree dia- 
lect to his wife, who translated it into the Sho- 
shone tongue which was understood by an Indian 
boy in the party, and he in turn told it to the tribe 
with whom Lewis and Clark wished to talk. Do 

91 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

you wonder that when possible they all used sign 
language, and relied still more on the language of 
gifts? 

The Americans were surprised that Sacajawea 
showed no desire to remain with her own people, 
but her loyalty and devotion to the explorers 
were unfailing. Once she learned of threatened 
treachery on the part of her tribe, that they 
planned to break camp and go down the Mis- 
souri River to the buffalo country on the east, tak- 
ing with them the horses which had been prom- 
ised to the white men. This would leave 
the newcomers stranded in the mountains, the lack 
of horses preventing their going westward. Im- 
mediately she told Lewis and Clark, who called 
the chiefs together, and after some discussion the 
plan was changed. By the end of August, with 
a replenished larder and fresh horses, the explor- 
ers were ready to start once more on their journey 
westward. 

The road, Sacajawea told the white captains, 
was over steep and rocky mountains, in whose 
fastnesses they would come to the narrow divide 
marking the source of the Missouri River. An 

92 



SACAJAWEA 

hour later they would find a stream running west, 
that would grow into a large river and flow on 
till it came to the great waters far away. But 
there was no food along its course, no paths 
along its rocky banks, no canoes could swim on its 
rough current. If they went on they must fol- 
low rude Indian trails where there was no game. 
For ten days they must cross a sandy desert. In 
many places travel would be slow. 

Slow progress indeed it was, on this toilsome, 
dangerous journey. Some days five miles was the 
best they could make; other days they went for- 
ward scarcely at all. Food became scarce, and 
among the men, as winter weather came on, there 
was much sickness. Once they had a six-day 
storm that drenched everything they had on. And 
by this time their supply of dried meat and fish 
was exhausted. 

They followed obscure windings of Indian 
trails, known only to the savages. Sometimes 
they made their way through wild canons strewn 
with stones; sometimes they climbed painfully up 
a rough slippery height, or skirted the edge of a 
precipice. Almost a month was spent in getting 

93 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

through the mountains. Cold, half-starved, fa- 
tigued, ragged, footsore, they came out on the 
other side, more like fugitives than conquerors. 

.What would they have done without Saca- 
jawea ? Dauntless and determined, always cheer- 
ful and resourceful, she had in her care 
the lives and fortunes of the whole party. It was 
she who gathered plants unknown to the white 
captains and cooked them into a mush. It was 
she who varied their monotonous diet by roasting, 
boiling and drying fennel roots, and stewing wild 
onions with their meat. It was she who found 
berries and edible seeds when starvation seemed 
the only outcome. She searched in the prairie 
dogs' holes with a sharp stick and discovered wild 
artichokes, as valuable as potatoes, with a delicious 
flavor. She taught the white men how to break 
shank bones of elk, boil them and extract the 
grease to make "trapper's butter." When Clark 
was ill she made bread for him with some flour 
she had saved for her baby — the only mouthful 
he tasted for days. 

Late in November they reached the coast and 
spent the winter, a forlorn group, at Fort Clatsop. 

94 



SACAJAWEA^ 

There was much sickness and the strength of the 
men began to fail. There was nothing but dried 
fish for food, and it rained and rained till their 
clothes and bedding rotted away. 

They had a strange celebration on Christmas 
day, when the men sang songs in the morning, 
and the Bird-woman brought a gift to Clark — = 
two dozen white weasels* tails ! 

In January during a brief interval of sunny 
weather, they planned to go to the beach to get 
oil and blubber from a whale that was reported 
stranded there. Sacajawea had heard of the 
Pacific in the legends of her tribe, she had heard 
of whales too, and begged to be allowed to go. 
Had she traveled all that long way only to fail 
to see the great waters and the great fish? So 
Clark agreed that she should accompany them. 
When they arrived the Indians had already dis- 
posed of the whale, the skeleton, a hundred and 
five feet long, being all that was left. 

Because of sickness and scant stores of food, 
bitterly disappointed when no trading ships ap- 
peared with fresh supplies, they began the return 
trip early in March instead of in April. Prog- 

95 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

ress was so rapid that the journey which west- 
ward had lasted for full eight months, was made 
in five, and six weeks of this time was taken up 
by a detour. The party divided and Clark, with 
Chaboneau and Sacajawea as guides, went to ex- 
plore the Yellowstone. 

In August they were once more at the Minne- 
taree village where the Bird- woman had first seen 
the white captains and their mill for grinding 
corn. Here the leaders said good-by to their 
Indian friend and guide. Clark offered to take 
the family to the states, give them land, horses, 
cows and hogs to start farming, or a boatload 
of merchandise as a stock for trading. But 
Chaboneau preferred to remain among the In- 
dians, saying he had no acquaintance in the East 
and no chance of making a livelihood. Clark 
then offered to take the baby, "my little dancing 
boy Baptiest," now eighteen months old, and 
bring him up as his own child, but Sacajawea re- 
fused. 

Chaboneau's wages, together with the payment 
for a horse, were five hundred dollars and thirty- 
three cents. The records say not a word of any 

96 



SACAJAWEi^ 

sum for Sacajawea whose faithfulness and intel- 
ligence had made success possible. She who could 
divine routes, who had courage when the men 
quailed, who could spread as good a table with 
bones as others with meat, was unthought of when 
bounties in land and money were granted. 

Writing back to Chaboneau a few days later, 
Clark did indeed give her full credit when he 
said : 

"Your woman who accompanied you that long 
and dangerous and fatiguing route to the Pacific 
Ocean and back deserved a greater reward for her 
attention and services on that route than we had 
in our power to give her at the Mandans." 

Chaboneau's money probably served to estab- 
lish his family very comfortably in the village in 
Dakota. You can imagine what stories they told 
of their adventures during the long winter eve- 
nings — of the wild animals they met, of their 
escape from the cloudburst at the Great Falls, of 
the mysterious, explosive sounds heard in the 
mountains, of the portages they made, of shoot- 
ing the rapids in the Columbia, of their struggle 
among the snows of the Bitter Root range, and 

97 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

of the great salt ocean at the sunset — for they 
had taken part in the most remarkable exploration 
of modem times. 

For many years there is no record of Saca- 
jawea. Clark, as superintendent of Indian af- 
fairs, in 1837 appointed Chaboneau interpreter, 
with a salary of three hundred dollars. And there 
is one official item, an expense account for a boy 
(possibly Baptiste) in school at Saint Louis, 
which was paid to Chaboneau, in 1820. The 
little papoose who traveled all that long journey 
grew up to be a guide, with his mother's native 
instinct and cleverness. He served with Bridget 
in southwest Wyoming; he is mentioned with 
Fremont in 1842 and from sometime in the sixties 
he lived on an Indian reservation in Fremont 
County, Wyoming. 

Sacajawea was there with him after 1871. An 
old, old woman, she is described by one of the 
missionaries, Doctor Irwin, short of stature, 
spare of figure, quick in her movements, 
remarkably straight and wonderfully active and 
intelligent considering her great age. She often 
told of her journey to the place of "much water 

98 



SACAJAWEA^ 

for the great Washington," as the government 
was always referred to, and talked of the **big 
waters beyond the shining mountains, toward the 
setting sun." And on that reservation she died 
and was buried. 

The journey of the two white captains pushed 
the frontier from the Mississippi to the coast. It 
burst through the Rocky Mountain barrier and 
opened the gates to the Pacific slope. It gave 
the nation a rich territory from which ten states 
were formed. But the services of Sacajawea 
had for many years no lasting commemoration. 
Shortly after the adventure in the boat the leaders 
did indeed name a river for the Bird-woman, one 
of the branches of the Musselshell in central Mon- 
tana, but the very first settlers changed it from 
Sacajawea to Crooked Creek and so it is called 
to-day. In very recent times the Geological Sur- 
vey named for her the great peak in the Bridger 
range overlooking the spot where she was cap- 
tured, and where she pointed out the pass over the 
mountains — a route chosen years later by the en- 
gineers of the Northern Pacific Railroad. This 
place was also marked with a boulder and 

99 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 



tablet by the Montana chapter of the Daughters 
of the Revolution. 

That is all that remains of Sacajawea — a peak 
bearing her name, and her story. A century after 
her long journey the women of Oregon erected, 
in the center of the great exposition court at 
Portland, a bronze statue of the noble Indian girl 
whose faithful service as a guide made possible 
the success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. 



D 



CHAPTER IX 

DOLLY MADISON 
I 772-1836 

OLLY PAYNE was a Virginian, though 
she was born while her parents were on a 
visit in North CaroHna. She Hved on a great 
plantation where she had wide fields to play in, 
and a devoted black mammy to look after her. 
Both her mother and grandmother were noted 
belles and Dolly, who was named for her second 
cousin, Mrs. Patrick Henry, evidently inherited 
their beauty, for as a very little girl, going to 
school, she wore a wide-brimmed sunbonnet and 
long mitts, to shield her face and arms from the 
sun. 

Dolly remembered how her father, in spite of 
the fact that they were Quakers, had buckled on 
his sword and ridden away to be a captain in the 
Revolutionary army, and how when the war was 
over, he came home again to join in the neighbor- 
hood's thanksgiving for America. 

lOI 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Soon after the war, when Dolly was four- 
teen years old, he freed his slaves, sold the 
plantation, and moved north to the city of broth- 
erly love that he might be among Quakers. It 
was then the largest town in the nation, with a 
reputation for being very rich and gay. But the 
Paynes maintained a strict Quaker standard of 
simplicity. 

Dorothy was a pretty girl, demure in her gray 
dress, but with bright Irish-blue eyes, long lashes, 
curling black hair and soft warm-hued skin. She 
had a particularly gay and joyous disposition, but 
was forbidden such pleasures as dancing and 
music. She went to the Friends' meeting-house 
where the men and boys in their black coats and 
broad-brimmed hats sat on one side of the room, 
the women and girls in their mouse-colored bon- 
nets and drab gowns on the other. 

Dolly's father had done very well on the south- 
ern plantation, but when he went into business in 
Philadelphia he found many troubles. Living 
cost much more than in Virginia, a good deal of 
his property had been lost through the war and 
he failed, then ill health added its burden. A 

102 



DOLLY MADISON 

rich young Quaker lawyer named John Todd 
helped and advised him. He had fallen in love 
with Dolly, and though she meant never to marry, 
she consented, to please her father who had only a 
few months more to live. 

On two successive Sundays she went through 
the embarrassing Quaker ceremony of rising in 
meeting and saying she proposed taking John 
Todd in marriage; and standing up before the 
congregation, they were married in the somber 
bare-walled meeting-house. Mistress Todd lived 
for three years the life of a Quaker lady, and a 
devoted wife she was to her young husband. She 
always wore a cap of tulle, a gray gown, with a 
lace kerchief over her shoulders and a large brooch 
fastening it — no other ornaments. Except for 
her beauty she was like a hundred other young 
Quaker women in the city of brotherly love. 

In August of 1793 an epidemic of yellow fever 
broke out in Philadelphia. Todd sent his wife 
and their two little children to a summer resort 
on the river, where many of their friends took 
refuge. He stayed In the city to care for his 
father and mother but they died of the plague. 

103 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Already ill himself he joined his family, only to 
give them the dread disease, he and the baby dy- 
ing shortly after his arrival. Dolly too was 
stricken with the fever, but recovered. 

At first she was bowed down by her great loss. 
But Philadelphia was gay and gradually Mistress 
Todd began going about again, far more freely 
than in the days of her sober girlhood. She 
found herself really enjoying society and all the 
pleasures of the city. From a shy girl she de- 
veloped into a most attractive woman. With her 
youth and her riches, it is no wonder that 
she became the object of much attention. Gen- 
tlemen would station themselves to see her pass, 
and her friends would say, *' Really, Dolly, thou 
must hide thy face. There are so many staring 
at thee!'* 

Among her many admirers was Aaron Burr, 
then a United States senator. For Philadelphia, 
you remember, was the capital of the newly or- 
ganized government, and the leading men of the 
time lived in the city. One day he asked her if he 
might bring a friend to call, for the "great little 
Madison," as his colleagues called him, had re- 

104 



DOLLY MADISON 

quested the honor of being presented. So the 
handsome Colonel Burr introduced Mr. James 
Madison, a little man dressed all in black, except 
for his ruffled shirt and silver buckles. Dolly 
wore a mulberry satin gown with silk tulle about 
her neck and a dainty lace cap on her head, her 
curly hair showing underneath. The scholarly 
Madison, who was twenty years older than she, 
was captivated by the pretty widow, sparkling 
with fun and wit, and soon offered himself as a 
husband, and was accepted. 

The President and Mrs. Washington were much 
pleased when they heard of the engagement. 
Sending for Dolly Mrs. Washington asked her if 
the news was true. 

"No, I think not," said Mistress Todd. 

**Be not ashamed to confess it, if it is so. He 
will make thee a good husband and all the better 
for being so much older. We both approve of 
it. The esteem and friendship existing between 
Mr. Madison and my husband is very great, and 
we would wish you two to be happy." 

Happy they were, during the week's jour- 
ney when they drove down to Virginia, to be 

105 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

married at the home of Dolly's sister; and during 
the merrymaking foll'owing the wedding which 
lavish southern hospitality, with, a ball and feast 
after the ceremony, made quite different from her 
first marriage. The quiet reserved Madison let 
the girls cut off bits of his Mechhn lace ruffles 
as keepsakes. And happy they were together for 
more than forty years. 

They lived only a short time at Montpelier, 
Madison's home in the Blue Ridge country, for 
public affairs soon took them back to Philadelphia 
and then to Washington. At her husband's re- 
quest Dolly laid aside her Quaker dress, entered 
society and entertained frequently. Her sweet 
manners, her tact and kindness of heart, made 
her friends everywhere. At that time party spirit 
ran high and political differences caused great bit- 
terness, but all animosities seemed forgotten in 
Mrs. Madison's presence. She slighted no one, 
hurt no one's feelings, and often made foes into 
friends. Perhaps her influence had almost as 
much to do with Madison's prominence in na- 
tional affairs as did his own unquestioned ability; 
for her sound common sense and exceptionally 
io6 



DOLLY MADISON 

good judgment often helped him in deciding pub- 
He questions. 

When Jefferson was elected president he made 
Madison his secretary of state. And since Jef- 
ferson was a widower and needed a lady to pre- 
side at the White House, he often called upon 
Mrs. Madison for this service. Then Madison 
succeeded Jefferson and Dolly became in name 
what she had been in effect, the first lady of the 
land. Thus for sixteen years she was hostess for 
the nation, and a famous hostess she was indeed. 

"Every one loves Mrs. Madison," said Henry 
Clay, voicing the common sentiment. 

**And Mrs. Madison loves everybody," was her 
quick response. 

The president used to say that when he was 
tired out from matters of state a visit to her 
sitting-room, where he was sure of a bright story 
and a hearty laugh, was as refreshing as a long 
walk in the open air. 

But even with such a mistress of the White 
House the affairs of the nation did not remain 
tranquil. Trouble with England, which had long 
been brewing, came to a crisis and war was de- 

107 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

clared in 1 812. As most of the fighting was at 
sea, hfe at Washington went on undisturbed until 
August of 1 8 14, when the British landed five 
thousand men near the capital and marched 
to attack it. The town was in a panic when the 
messenger rode in at full speed, announcing fifty 
ships anchoring in the Potomac. 

*'Have you the courage to stay here till I come 
back, to-morrow or next day?" asked the presi- 
dent. 

And Dolly Madison replied, 'T am not afraid 
of anything, if only you are not harmed and our 
army triumphs.*' 

"Good-by then, and if anything happens, look 
out for the state papers," said Madison, and rode 
away to the point where the citizen-soldiers were 
gathering. 

Many Washington people began carrying their 
property off to the country, but the brave woman 
at the White House did not run away. At last 
there came a penciled note from the president : 

"Enemy stronger than we heard at first. They 
may reach the city and destroy it. Be ready to 
leave at a moment's warning." 

108 



DOLLY MADISON 

Most of Mrs. Madison's friends were already- 
gone, even the soldiers who had been left to guard 
the executive mansion. Not a wagon could be se- 
cured. ''Bring me as many trunks as my carriage 
will hold," ordered Dolly Madison and set to 
work packing them with the -nation's most valu- 
able papers. Night came but the lady of the White 
House worked on. At dawn she began searching 
through her spyglass, hoping to catch a glimpse 
of her husband. All she could see was here and 
there a group of soldiers wandering about, men 
sleeping in the fields, frightened women and chil- 
dren hurrying to the bridge over the Potomac. 
She could hear the roar of cannon, the battle was 
going on only six miles away; still the president 
did not come. 

One of the servants, French John, offered to 
spike the cannon at the gate and lay a train of 
powder that would blow up the British if they 
entered the house. But to this Mrs. Madison 
objected, though she could not make John under- 
stand why in war every advantage might not be 
taken. 

About three o'clock in the afternoon two men 
109 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

covered with dust galloped up and cried, "Fly, 
fly! The house will be burned over your head!" 

Some good friends had succeeded in getting a 
wagon and Mrs. Madison filled it with the White 
House silver. 

*To the bank of Maryland," she ordered, and 
added to herself, "or the hands of the British — 
which will it be?" 

Two friends came in to urge haste, reminding 
her that the English admiral, Cockburn, had taken 
an oath that he would sit in her drawing-room 
and that other officers had boasted they would 
take the president and his wife both prisoner and 
carry them to London to make a show of them. 
They were just ready to lift her into the carriage 
when Dolly stopped. 

"Not yet — the portrait of Washington — it shall 
never fall into the hands of the enemy. That 
must be taken away before I leave the house/* 

The famous painting by Gilbert Stuart was in 
a heavy frame, screwed to the wall in the state 
dining-room, but in that frantic hurry there were 
no tools at hand to remove it. 

"Get an axe and break the frame," commanded 
no 



DOLLY MADISON 

Dolly Madison. She watched the canvas taken 
from the stretcher, saw it rolled up carefully, and 
sent to a place of safety. Later it was returned 
to her, and to-day hangs over the mantel in the 
red room of the White House. 

One more delay — the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was kept in a glass case, separate from 
the other state papers. Notwithstanding all the 
protests of her friends, Dolly Madison ran back 
into the house, broke the glass, secured the Dec- 
laration with the autographs of the signers, got 
into her carriage and drove rapidly away to a 
house beyond Georgetown. 

None too soon did she leave. The sound 
of approaching troops was heard. The British 
were upon the city. They broke into the execu- 
tive mansion, ransacked it, had dinner there in 
the state dining-room, stole what they could carry, 
and then set fire to the building. 

Instead of sleeping that night, Dolly Madison, 
with thousands of others, watched the fire de- 
stroying the capital, while the wind from an 
approaching storm fanned the flames. Before 
daybreak she set out for a little tavern, sixteen 

III 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

miles away, where her husband had arranged 
to meet her. The roads were filled with fright- 
ened people, while fleeing soldiers spread the wild- 
est rumors of the enemy's advance. 

Arrived at the inn finally in the height of the 
storm, the woman in charge refused to take her 
in, saying, ''My man had to go to fight ; your hus- 
band brought on this war and his wife shall have 
no shelter in my house !" 

The tavern was thronged with women and 
children, refugees from the city, who finally pre- 
vailed on the woman to let Mrs. Madison enter. 
The president arrived later, but before he had 
rested an hour a messenger came crying, "The 
British know you are here — fly!" 

Dolly Madison begged him to go to a little hut 
in the woods where he would be safe, and prom- 
ised that she would leave in disguise and find a 
refuge farther away. In the gray of the morning 
she started, but soon came the good news that the 
English, hearing reinforcements were coming, had 
gone back to their ships. At once she turned and 
drove toward the city. The bridge over the 
Potomac was afire. 

112 



DOLLY MADISON 

''Will you row me across ?" she asked an Amer- 
ican officer. 

"No, we don't let strange women into the city." 

In vain she pleaded. He was firm. "We have 
spies enough here. How do I know but the Brit- 
ish have sent you to bum what they have left? 
You will not cross the river, that is sure." 

''But I am Mrs. Madison, the wife of your 
president," she answered, throwing off her dis- 
guise. Then he rowed her across the Potomac. 
Through clouds of smoke, past heaps of still 
smoldering ruins, she made her way to the home 
of her sister, and waited there for Mr. Madison 
to return. 

While the White House was being rebuilt the 
Madisons lived in Pennsylvania Avenue, and a 
brilliant social life centered about them. They 
revived the levees of Washington and Adams, 
gave handsome state dinners and introduced mu- 
sic at their receptions. 

When Madison's second term was ended they 
went to live at Montpelier, their beautiful Vir- 
ginia home, where they entertained with true 
southern hospitality the many friends and tourists 
113 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

who visited them. Mr. Madison, for many years 
an invaUd, busied himself with books and writing. 

Soon after his death in 1836 Dolly returned to 
Washington, to be near her old friends. Her 
home again became a social center, for her tact 
and beauty and grace made her always a favorite 
and a leader. She entertained many distin- 
guished guests, "looking every inch a queen," the 
British ambassador declared. Sometimes there 
were as many visitors at her receptions as at those 
at the White House. All the homage of former 
times was hers, an4 much consideration was 
shown her by public officials, Congress voting her 
a seat on the floor of the House. 

Brougnt up in strict Quaker ways, she adorned 
every station in life in which she was placed. 
And in a crisis when the White House was in 
danger, Dolly Madison was courageous enough to 
delay her departure till she had saved the Stuart 
Washington and the Declaration of Independence. 



L 



CHAPTER X 

LUCRETIA MOTT 
I793-1880 

UCRETIA COFFIN was a Quaker, bom on 
the quaint little island of Nantucket. Her 
father ''followed the sea," captain of a whaler, 
and was often gone for long periods of time. 
So it was the mother who was responsible for 
the early training of the six children. Thrift and 
efficient housekeeping Lucretia learned, along with 
the Quaker doctrine of non-resistance, and a thor- 
ough knowledge of the Bible. 

When she was twelve, Captain Coffin forsook 
the sea and moved his family to Boston. Public 
schools there gave Lucretia a feeling of sympathy 
for the patient struggling poor which was always 
a prominent trait in her character. 

Later she was sent to a Friends' boarding- 
school at Nine Partners, New York, and stayed 
for two years, with no holidays and no vacation. 
A strict school it was, for though both boys and 

115 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

girls were the pupils, they were not allowed to 
speak to each other unless they were near rela- 
tives in which case they might talk on certain days 
over the fence that separated their playgrounds. 
Punishment Lucretia Coffin could bear herself far 
more easily than she could see some one else en- 
dure it ; when for some trifling misdemeanor, a lit- 
tle boy, a cousin of James Mott, one of the teach- 
ers, was locked up in- a dark closet and given only 
bread and water, Lucretia managed to slip into 
the forbidden side of the house and supply him 
with more substantial food. 

One of the instructors left the school, and fif- 
teen-year-old Lucretia became an assistant teach- 
er, working with her classes in the daytime, and 
with her books by the light of a solitary candle 
far into the night. A year later she was made a 
regular teacher, with a salary of a hundred dol- 
lars, her living and tuition for one of her little 
sisters. 

The two young pedagogues, James Mott and 

Lucretia Coffin, found that they had many ideas 

in common — ability, and a desire for knowledge 

and a wider culture — so they formed a French 

Ii6 



LUCRETIA MOTT 

class and had lessons for six weeks. Such good 
friends they became that when she was eighteen 
and he a few years older, they became engaged 
and were married and settled in Philadelphia. 
He was quiet, reserved, serious ; she bright, active, 
very pretty. And after they had worked together 
for a great cause, they loved each other more 
deeply than ever. 

As a very young girl Lucretia Mott had been 
interested in slavery. Her sympathy had first been 
enlisted from reading in her schoolbooks Clark- 
son's vivid picture of the slave ships. Many years 
later she repeated word for word a description of 
the horrors of the ^'middle passage," which she 
had memorized from a reader. In 1818 on a 
journey to Virginia, she had a first affecting 
glimpse of the slaves themselves. 

This trip to the South was for the purpose of 
holding religious meetings, for early that year 
Lucretia Mott discovered her great gift — ^public 
speaking. Among the Friends it was no uncom- 
mon thing for women to take part in meeting, 
and Mrs. Mott soon became one of their favorite 
preachers. She had a real power over her au- 

117 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

diences — her slight figure, her delicate, charming 
face in the Quaker bonnet, at once strong and 
tender, her sweetness of voice added to the con- 
vincing earnestness of her manner. 

People of all denominations went miles to hear 
her. Soon she began traveling around the 
country, speaking in Quaker meeting-houses, tell- 
ing her listeners of the peace-loving principles of 
the Friends, pointing out the evils of injustice in 
any form, and always, in season and out of sea- 
son, emphasizing the sin of slavery. Long 
before Lundy and Garrison began their news- 
papers, long before Garrison and V/endell 
Phillips were thundering against slavery and urg- 
ing immediate emancipation, this small sweet- 
faced Friend, mild and gentle in nature, was 
blazing the way for the anti-slavery movement, a 
pioneer among the advocates for freedom. 

Through New York State, into New England 
and across to Nantucket, as far south as Virginia, 
west to Ohi-o and Indiana, she traveled by stage- 
coach or boat or carriage. Speaking at seventy- 
one meetings in a ten weeks' trip seems to have 
been no unusual record for her. She always 
ii8 



LUCRETIA MOTT 

wore a simple, dove-colored dress, with a crossed 
muslin kerchief at the neck, and a prim little cap. 
But the secret of her magnetic personality was 
that she spoke because she was conscious of a 
power impelling her to do so. Words came to 
her, as tears come, without will of her own, be- 
cause her heart was full and she couldn't help it. 
Though the leading abolitionists were often de- 
scribed as raving fanatics, Lucretia Mott was 
noted for her unfailing composure, her calm tone 
of profound faith, her lack of vehement accents 
and violent gestures. 

"Notice was given here for a religious meet- 
ing," said the distressed elders in one western 
town that bordered on a slave state. "We do 
hope, Mrs. Mott, you will not name slavery, or 
allude to it this afternoon." 

**Why," was her answer, "that is eminently a 
religious subject. I should consider myself dis- 
obedient to the voice of God in my soul if I did 
not speak against it." 

Her audience there was so large that many 
had to stand. Ordinarily they would have become 
restless. For an hour and a half she held them, 
119 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

closely attentive, and though she said some 
things far from palatable to that prejudiced, ex- 
cited, border section, her sincerity commanded 
their respect and they crowded the hall again that 
evening to hear her speak. 

Gradually the opposition to slavery, which she 
had been fostering, won adherents to its cause. 
The Garrison campaign began. Friends of free- 
dom came out openly and spoke their views. In 
1833 3- national anti-slavery society was formed 
in Philadelphia. Of the sixty or seventy dele- 
gates, four were women, Lucretia Mott among 
them. They were present by invitation, as lis- 
teners only. But during the discussion of the 
proposed constitution, when one of the women 
briefly, modestly, suggested transposing certain 
sentences, to put first the reference to the Declara- 
tion of Independence, the men were so impressed 
that they made the change immediately. But more 
than this Mrs. Mott, a listener, accomplished. 
Her encouragement strengthened and confirmed 
their purpose at a critical moment when some 
overcautious souls urged a policy of delay. 

The following year the Female Anti-slavery 
120 



LUCRETIA MOTT 

Society was formed, the majority of its members 
Friends, and Lucretia Mott served as president 
during most of its existence. For women to have 
an association of their own was almost unheard 
of, in the eighteen thirties. They had no idea of 
the meaning of preambles, resolutions and voting ; 
and later they confessed with amusement that they 
had to invite a colored man to preside at their 
first meeting, to get them started. 

In 1840 came a world's anti-slavery convention 
in London, and Lucretia Mott was one of the 
delegates from the United States. Full of en- 
thusiasm the first group arrived, only to find that 
women were not to be recognized. The doors 
were shut against them, because of the old, old 
prejudice — women should stay at home and be 
entertaining, public affairs would rob them of 
their sweetest charm. 

Wendell Phillips protested and moved that the 
ladies be admitted. The excited discussion 
lasted for several hours, but when the vote was 
taken the majority against the resolution was 
overwhelming. So in the gallery sat Lucretia 
Mott, with Harriet Martineau, Mrs. Wendell 

121 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Phillips, and other women delegates, and their 
recruit, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 

Arriving some days later, Garrison felt so out- 
raged at this treatment of his co-workers that he 
refused to take his seat in the convention. With 
two other masculine members from the American 
Society he sat up-stairs with the ladies. The 
British were scandalized — what sort of world's 
convention was this, with the founder of the 
greatest anti-slavery movement of the century de- 
barred from taking his seat on the floor? They 
sent him a special invitation, but Garrison was 
firm. He remembered that Lucretia Mott had 
been the first to shake his hand when he came out 
of prison! 

But before the meetings were over a tea was 
given with more than four hundred guests; and 
there, much to the men's consternation, Lucretia 
Mott spoke. With a dignity that carried great 
force, with real eloquence, she chose this way of 
addressing the convention. The delegates found 
themselves listening with pleasure and admira- 
tion, and broke into applause. 

While they were in London, Lucretia Mott bad 

122 



LUCRETIA MOTT 

a call from Clarkson, the English abolitionist, 
then an old, old man of eighty-one, almost blind, 
and they had a long talk together. 

It is difficult for people of to-day to appreciate 
what peril and reproach it meant to take a stand 
against slavery. Individuals who dared to do so 
had to face private detraction and public abuse, 
sometimes actual physical violence. On the side 
of slavery was ranged all the power of trade and 
politics, of church and state, of respectability and 
riot. This opposition became more and more 
bitter, more and more popular, more and more 
widely spread. In equal or greater ratio the 
earnestness and zeal of the anti-slavery group in- 
creased. They were held up to odium and ridi- 
cule, for the spirit of persecution was abroad. 
Lucretia Mott's old friends scorned her and 
laughed at her. They passed her on the street 
without speaking. 

"But," said she, * ^misrepresentation and ridi- 
cule and abuse heaped on these reforms do not 
in the least deter me from my duty." 

Mobs of men and women would assemble out- 
side the halls where anti-slavery meetings were 
123 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

being held. They stoned the windows, they broke 
in, leaped on the platform, and shouted so loudly^ 
that the speaker's voice was lost in the noise. 
Pennsylvania Hall, dedicated to "liberty and the 
rights of man," was surrounded by a crowd while 
Lucretia Mott was addressing an audience of 
Philadelphia women, and brickbats were hurled 
through the windows. The next day, shortly 
after the meeting had adjourned, the mob set the 
hall on fire, then marched through the streets, 
threatening an attack on the Motts' house. The 
children were sent away to a place of safety, and 
the little Quaker lady, with her husband and a few 
friends, sat quietly waiting for the crowd to 
come. But their fury was turned against another 
part of the city and the Motts were safe for that 
night. 

Shortly afterward they were sitting in the par- 
lor one evening when they heard confused noises 
and cries that came nearer and nearer — an angry 
rumble hard to describe, but all too familiar to the 
experienced ears of negroes and abolitionists. 
In the crowd was a young man who knew the 
Quaker family. ''On to the Motts'!" he cried, 

124 



LUCRETIA MOTT 

and purposely ran up the wrong street, making 
several quick turnings. The rioters followed him 
blindly until he slipped away from them, and a 
second time the Motts were saved from violence. 

In New York City an anti-slavery meeting was 
broken up by the crowd and Garrison and other 
speakers roughly handled. Lucretia Mott, whose 
fears and thoughts were never for herself, always 
unshrinking and self-possessed in the stormiest 
scenes, noticed that some of the women looked 
timid. 

"Won't thee look after the others?" she asked 
the gentleman who accompanied her. 

"Then who will take care of you?" 

"This man will see me through," she said, put- 
ting her hand on the arm of a big ruffian in a red 
shirt. Roused by this unexpected appeal to his 
chivalry he made way for her through the crowd 
and escorted her safely to the house where she 
was staying. 

The next day in a restaurant near the hall, she 
recognized him and sitting down at his table 
began talking with him. When he left he asked : 

"Who is that lady?" 

125 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

*'Lucretia Mott." 

Dumfounded for a moment he shook his head 
and then said, "Well, she's a good sensible wom- 
an!" 

In her own home Lucretia Mott sheltered fugi- 
tive slaves, till it became widely known as a place 
of refuge. Many a poor negro she helped on his 
way to Canada, by the Underground Railroad. 
In the entrance hall of the Mott house there stood 
two roomy armchairs which the family called 
"the beggars' chairs," for there appHcants, rich 
and poor, known and unknown, black and white, 
waited to see Mrs. Mott. 

Almost incredible was the opposition she met. 
Even the gentle Quakers reproached her for "lug- 
ging in" slavery at their meetings. Many of 
them wished she would resign. A minority 
wanted to disown her. They refused the use of 
their meeting-houses for abolition lectures. When 
she was speaking away from Philadelphia they al- 
lowed her to stay at country taverns, instead of 
inviting her to their homes — a great breach of 
hospitality. They discussed taking away her 
"approved minister's minute," which introduced 
126 



LUCRETIA MOTT 

her to Quaker communities. But in justice to 
herself, and because she loved the society and its 
traditions and desired to remain a Friend, she 
was so careful that they could bring no case 
against her. 

Never did she compromise her principles. 
Never did she ask for police protection, though 
the mob clamored and howled around the build- 
ing. And never did she meet bodily harm. She 
lived the Quaker doctrine of non-resistance, and 
did not believe in repellmg violence with violence. 
Holding that slavery was wrong, the Motts de- 
cided to use nothing made with slave labor. That 
meant giving up sugar and candy and cotton cloth. 
Most of all, it meant giving up the cotton goods 
commission business in which for the first time 
James Mott was finding it possible to make a com- 
fortable living. Yet unflinchingly they sacrificed 
material prosperity for the spiritual gain. Mrs. 
Mott opened a school and they managed to get 
along until a new business could be established. 

After the Civil War colored people were not 
allowed to ride in the Philadelphia street-cars ex- 
cept in certain ones reserved for them. One 

127 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

rainy day Lucretia Mott saw a negress, evidently 
in poor health, standing on the platform in a cold 
drizzle. She asked the conductor to let her enter 
the car, but he refused. Immediately Mrs. Mott 
went outside and stood by the woman. The famous 
Mrs. Mott, seventy years old, riding in the rain 
on the platform of his car? That would never 
do! The conductor begged her to come in. 

"Not without this woman — I can not !" was the 
reply. 

*'0h, well, bring her in then," he said. And 
soon the company changed the rule discriminating 
against colored passengers. 

After the fugitive slave law was passed in 1850 
many exciting cases came up in Philadelphia. 
Perhaps the most famous was the trial of a negro 
named Daniel Webster Dangerfield, who was ar- 
rested, charged with being a fugitive slave. The 
alleged master engaged a famous lawyer who was 
later attorney-general of the United States. The 
trial lasted all one day, into the night and the 
next day; all that time Lucretia Mott with her 
knitting sat in the crowded room beside the poor 
ragged prisoner, like a guardian spirit. The op- 

128 



LUCRETIA MOTT 

posing counsel asked that her chair be moved, 
fearing that her face would influence the jury! 

In the court the negro won ; but outside a rabble 
surged up and down, threatening to give him over 
to his Maryland master, while inside a group of 
young Quakers was equally determined that he 
should keep his hard-won freedom. Another 
colored man, resembling him, was driven away 
from the court-house in the carriage, while Dan- 
gerfield walked a few squares with some of his 
friends, then was sent eight miles to an unsus- 
pected station of the Underground Railroad, 
and in a few days was safe in Canada. 

"I have heard a great deal of Mrs. Mott," said 
the opposing lawyer at the conclusion of the trial, 
**but never saw her before to-day. She is an 
angel!" 

Soon after he joined the party of freedom. 
Asked how he dared to make the change, with 
so many interests arrayed on the other side, his 
answer was, *'Do you think there is anything I 
dare not do, after sitting in that court room facing 
Lucretia Mott?" 

With all her public work this gentle Friend was 
129 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

first of all a womanly woman, a fine housekeq)er, 
a splendid mother, a devoted wife. Her letters 
speak constantly of the varied activities of her 
hands — of doing the family ironing, making mince 
meat for forty pies, sewing and putting down 
carpets, knitting, and making carpet-rags and the 
children's clothes. She was herself the best an- 
swer to the argument that public affairs must nec- 
essarily take a woman's attention from her house- 
hold. 

For years the abolitionists felt their cause hope- 
less. The very utmost they could do would be 
a lifelong protest against slavery. But Lucretia 
Mott lived to see freedom for the negroes an ac- 
complished fact. Nor did she confine her work to 
this one cause. She was as firm an advocate of 
woman's equality with man, an able speaker for 
woman's rights in that early day when the subject 
met only ridicule and abuse. She used her elo- 
quence for temperance, for the advancement of 
the freedmen, for peace through arbitration. 

Instead of averted faces and open condemna- 
tion, in her last years she met everywhere with 
tenderness and veneration. And her face was like 

130 



LUCRETIA MOTT 

that of a transfigured saint, for she was with- 
out jealousy or bitterness, free from maUce, in- 
capable of hate. She was a preacher, a reformer, 
a woman commanding our admiration. 

Exactly how much she did for abolition in that 
half -century of agitation and reform can not be 
measured accurately. She planted the seed and 
encouraged others. As famous and as much 
abused as Garrison, as popular a speaker as Phil- 
lips, she antedated them both. She was a ver- 
itable pioneer in the great movement that cul- 
minated in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. 



T 



CHAPTER XI 

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
181I-1896 

HE Beechers came to America in 1638 and 
were leaders in the New Haven colony. Al- 
most two centuries later the most celebrated mem- 
ber of this family was bom in the old parsonage in 
the beautiful Connecticut hilltown of Litchfield. 
The father of this little girl, Lyman Beecher, 
was preaching earnest sermons, on the munificent 
salary of five hundred a year. To add to 
their income the mother, a beautiful and gifted 
woman, opened a school, though she had eight 
children of her own to care for. All of them 
grew up to be distinguished, especially the two 
youngest, Harriet and Henry Ward, who were 
inseparable companions. 

Harriet had a remarkable memory and read all 
the books she could find. But most of her 
father's library was sermons and church pam- 
phlets, appeals and replies and theological dis- 

132 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

cussions ; so you can imagine her delight when at 
the bottom of a garret barrel of musty sermons 
and essays she discovered The Arabian Nights, 
and delicious fragments of The Tempest and Don 
Quixote. Her father had said his children were 
not to read novels, but made an exception of 
Ivanhoe. The delighted Harriet and her brother 
George read it through seven times in six months, 
until indeed they could recite many scenes by 
heart. 

The Beecher children were wide-awake, bright, 
happy youngsters, a big family of them, partly 
educated by running wild on the long breezy hills. 
Until she was eleven Harriet went to a "dame 
school" and to the Litchfield Academy, showing 
her future bent by thoroughly enjoying, instead 
of dreading, the task of composition writing. 
Sir Walter Scott helped form her style. She read 
and re-read her few books until words and sen- 
tences were fixed in her mind. 

At one of the school exhibitions when composi- 
tions were read, Doctor Beecher, listening idly, 
suddenly brightened and looked up. 

"Who wrote that?" he asked. 

133 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

"Your daughter, sir," replied the teacher. 

**That," said Harriet years later, when she 
knew something of fame, 'Vas the proudest mo- 
ment of my life." 

The older sister Catherine had opened a school 
for girls at Hartford, and twelve-year-old Har- 
riet went there, first as a pupil, then as teacher. 
Indeed she was for a time both, and crowded 
days she had. In this double race for develop- 
ment her brain wearied out her body. The mem- 
ory of those overworked days lingered with her 
all her life. Healthy and hearty as a little child, 
she was allowed to think and feel and study too 
much. Consequently as a woman she was far 
from vigorous, finding her lack of strength a con- 
tinual drawback to her work. 

Her father had been preaching for six years 
in Boston and was now offered the presidency of 
Lane Seminary, to be opened in Cincinnati. Cath- 
erine was to start a school for girls, with Harriet 
as her assistant. The whole family made the 
toilsome adventurous journey across the moun- 
tains by stage-coach, to what was then considered 
the Far West. 

134 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

In addition to her work in the school Harriet 
wrote short essays and sketches for publication, 
giving them away at first. But when the Western 
Magazine offered a prize of fifty dollars for a 
story and she won it, she began to think of writ- 
ing as a possible means of livelihood. 

In 1836 she married Calvin Stowe, a professor 
in the seminary. They were far from wealthy, 
at times even poor, for Professor Stowe, rich in 
Greek and Latin and Hebrew and Arabic, was 
rich in nothing else. Though she had a house- 
hold of little children, and often a few boarders, 
Harriet continued writing from time to time. 
Her first check was used to buy a feather bed. 
When a new mattress or carpet was needed, or 
the year's accounts wouldn't balance, she would 
send off a story, literally to keep the pot boiling. 

Outwardly their life in Ohio was orderly and 
quiet, but every month occurred something stir- 
ring, even spectacular. There were fierce debates 
on the slavery question among the seminary stu- 
dents. Doctor Bailey, a Cincinnati editor who 
started a discussion of the subject in his paper, 
twice had his presses broken and thrown into the 

135 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

river. Mrs. Stowe's brother went about his news- 
paper work armed. Houses of colored people 
were burned and attacked; the shop of an aboli- 
tionist was riddled ; free negroes were kidnapped. 
The Beecher family slept with weapons at hand, 
ready to defend the seminary. Many slaves es- 
caping from Kentucky sought refuge in the town, 
where the Underground Railroad helped them to 
reach Canada and safety. 

It was impossible to live in Cincinnati and not 
be personally affected. Servants were hard to 
secure, especially for a household with slender 
means, though colored maids were available. The 
Stowes had a young negress from Kentucky who 
had been brought to Cincinnati by her mistress 
and left there. When a man came across the 
river hunting for her, meaning to take her back 
to slavery again, Mr. Stowe and Henry Ward 
Beecher drove the poor girl at night, in a severe 
storm, twelve miles into the country, where they 
left her with a friend until search for her was 
given over. 

Colored boys and girls came to the classes Mrs. 
Stowe had for her own children. One little 
136 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

fellow was claimed by his former master, arrested 
and put up at auction. The distracted mother 
begged and pleaded for help. Harriet Beecher 
Stowe went out and raised the money to buy the 
child and give him back to his mother. 

Pathetic incidents such as these were continually 
coming to the attention of the professor's family. 
In Cincinnati this New England woman had a 
real acquaintance with negroes, and was quick to 
note their peculiar characteristics. Unconsciously 
she was absorbing and assimilating pictures of 
slavery which later served a great purpose. 

"What is there here to satisfy one whose mind 
is awakened on the subject?*' she asked. "No one 
can have it brought before him without an irre- 
pressible desire to do something, but what is 
there to be done?'' 

To find this something-to-do gradually became 
one of her chief thoughts, even though her domes- 
tic cares were almost overwhelming and her health 
suffered from the strain. The resources of the 
family did not increase. One year she was ill six 
months out of the twelve, yet she put up the 
stiffest kind of fight against the most dishearten- 

137 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

ing odds. Whenever the household was in a com- 
parative calm she would seize her pen and 
write some story or sketch. A delicate, highly 
strung, little woman, with seven children on her 
hands, she wrote in the tumult of the living-room, 
with babies tumbling about her, with tables being 
set and cleared away, with children being washed 
and dressed, and everything imaginable in a 
household going on. 

Doctor Stowe received a call to Bowdoin Col- 
lege, in Brunswick, Maine. Perhaps the family 
was glad to leave the excited atmosphere of Cin- 
cinnati where feeling on the slavery question was 
so inflamed, and live once more in the calm of 
New England. Yet for Mrs. Stowe it was not 
to remain for long a calm background. 

On the journey north she stopped in Boston at 
the home of her brother Edward. The fugitive 
slave bill was being debated in Congress just at 
this time and everyw^here the hearts of thinking 
men were stirred. Her visit came at the height of 
the fierce and fiery discussion of the proposed law 
which not only gave southern owners the right 
to pursue their slaves into free states, but forced 

138 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

the North to assist in the business. Her brother 
had received and forwarded fugitives many a 
time. She heard heartrending accounts of slaves 
recaptured and dragged back in irons, of children 
torn from their mothers and sold south 
— this breaking up of families offended her most 
of all. 

Soon after the Stowes were settled in their 
Maine home a letter came from her sister-in- 
law in Boston. 

"Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I 
would write something to make this whole nation 
feel what an accursed thing slavery is." 

Reading this letter aloud to the family, when 
she came to that sentence Harriet Beecher Stowe 
rose, crushed the paper in her hand, and with a 
look on her face that her children never forgot, 
she exclaimed, **I will write something — if I live, 

I will r 

She was forty years old, in delicate health, 
overladen with responsibilities ; a devoted mother, 
with small children, one still a baby; with un- 
trained servants requiring supervision; with her 
pupils to be taught daily; and boarders to eke 

139 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

out the limited salary — her hands were full to 
overflowing. It seemed unlikely that she would 
ever do anything but this ceaseless labor. But 
her heart burned within her for those in bondage. 
The law passed and the fugitives were hunted 
out and sent back into servitude and death. 
The people of the North looked on indifferently. 
Could she, a woman with no reputation, waken 
them by anything she might write? 

While at a communion service in the little 
church at Brunswick, like a vision the death 
of Uncle Tom on Legree's plantation came before 
her. Scarcely able to control her sobbing, she 
hurried home, locked herself in her room, and 
wrote it out, exactly as it stands now, in a white 
heat of passionate enthusiasm. She read it to 
her two little boys, ten and twelve years old. 
Through his sobs one of them said, "Oh, mamma, 
slavery is the most cursed thing in the world !'* 

Then she wrote the opening chapters and of- 
fered the manuscript to Doctor Bailey who had 
moved his paper from Cincinnati to Washington. 
He accepted It and arranged that it should be 
printed in weekly instalments — a dangerous 

140 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

method unless the story is completed before pub- 
lication begins. With only fragments of her 
time to write, she sent off the necessary chapters 
each week, composed sometimes in pain and wear- 
iness, under almost insurmountable difficulties, sel- 
dom revised, sometimes not even punctuated. But 
the story was to her so much more intense a 
reality than any other earthly thing that the re- 
quired pages never failed. 

The subject possessed her. Her whole being 
was saturated with her theme. Her hot indigna- 
tion was welling up, her deep pity was a part of 
her inmost soul. Day and night it was there in 
her mind, waiting to be written, needing but a 
few hours to bring it into sentences and para- 
graphs. She had been a guest at the Shelby plan- 
tation soon after her arrival in Cincinnati. Now, 
nearly twenty years later, she described the details 
of that visit with minutest fidelity — the humble 
cot of the negro, the planter's mansion, the funny 
pranks and songs of the slaves. Eliza's escape 
was suggested by the story of one of her own serv- 
ants. Uncle Tom's simple honor and loyalty 
were characteristics impressed on her by the hus- 

141 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

band of a former slave woman for whom she 
wrote letters, a man who remained in bondage 
rather than break his promise to his master and 
so win his freedom. Topsy was a child in Mrs. 
Stowe's mission Sunday-school class, who only 
grinned in bewilderment when asked, "Have you 
ever heard anything about God?" When the 
teacher asked again, "Do you know who made 
you ?" the answer was, "Nobody as I knows on," 
the eyes twinkling as she added, "I 'spect I 
growed." And Legree's plantation was pictured 
to her in a letter from her brother Charles, who 
went on a business trip up the Red River to an 
estate where the slaves were treated with a brutal- 
ity almost indescribable. Her own experiences 
thus gave the personal touch that fires knowledge 
into passion. 

"My heart was bursting with the anguish ex- 
cited by the cruelty and injustice our nation was 
showing to the slave, and praying God to let me 
do a little, and to cause my cry for them to be 
heard. Weeping many a time as I thou'ght of the 
slave mothers whose babes were torn from them, 
I put my lifeblood, my prayers, my tears, into 

142 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

the book," was her own graphic description of its 
making. 

The story was not so much composed by her 
as imposed upon her. Scenes and conversations 
and incidents rushed on her with a vividness and 
importunity admitting of no denial. She had no 
choice in the matter, the book insisted on getting 
itself into shape and could not be withstood. 

Years afterward an old sea captain asked to 
shake hands with the author of Uncle Tom's 
Cabin. 

*T did not write it," said the white-haired lady 
gently. 

"You didn't?" he ejaculated in great surprise. 
'*Why, who did, then?" 

'*God wrote it," she replied simply, *T merely 
did His dictation." 

"Amen," said the captain reverently, and 
walked thoughtfully away. 

The serial ran in the Nezi^ Era from June of 
1 85 1 to the following April. When it was near- 
ing completion a firm in Boston offered to print it 
in book form, but feared failure if it was much 
longer. 

143 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

''I can not stop/' was her answer, "until it is 
done." 

Henry Ward Beecher told his sister his plans 
to work against slavery in Plymouth church. 

*'I too have begun to do something," was her 
reply; *1 have begun a story trying to set forth 
the sufferings and wrongs of the slaves." 

"That's right, Hattie. Finish it and I'll scat- 
ter it thick as the leaves of Vallombrosa." 

But there was small need for his endorsement. 
It was soon published as a book. Would anybody 
read it, she asked herself doubtfully; the subject 
was so unpopular. She would help it make its 
way, if possible, and sent a copy to Queen Vic- 
toria, knowing how deeply she was interested in 
the abolition of slavery. Then this busy woman 
waited in the quiet Maine home to see what the 
world would say. 

The first day three thousand copies were sold, 
ten thousand in ten days, over three hundred 
thousand the first year. The magazine had paid 
her three hundred dollars for the manuscript; 
the check for her first month's royalty was 
ten thousand dollars, when Professor Stowe 

144 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

had hoped the proceeds would buy her a new silk 
dress. There were translations into twenty dif- 
ferent languages, forty editions in England, while 
the publishers lost count of the number in Amer- 
ica. How restful for the tired overworked wom- 
an to have more than enough for her daily needs, 
to be free from the anxieties of poverty ! 

"Having been poor all my life," she said, "and 
expecting to be poor for the rest of it, the idea 
of making money by a book which I wrote just 
because I couldn't help it, never occurred to me." 

Written with a purpose, a great underlying 
principle, Uncle Tom's Cabin is distinctly the 
work of a woman's heart, not of her head. And 
this explains the book's merits as well as its liter- 
ary defects. 

"But If critics find unskilful treatment," wrote 
George Sand, "look well at them and see if their 
eyes are dry when they are reading this or that 
chapter. The life and death of a little child and 
of a negro slave — that is the whole book. The 
affection that unites them is the only love story." 

Yet this book met with a success that reads 
like a fairy tale. It was dramatized immediately, 
six London theaters playing it at the same time. 

145 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Learned reviews printed long notices of it, leading 
.writers in America and England added their criti- 
cal appreciation. Even those rating it low as a 
work of art called it a true picture of slavery. 
The common people accepted it eagerly, mak- 
ing it the most widely read book of modem times. 
It was one of the greatest triumphs in literary his- 
tory, to say nothing of the higher moral triumph. 

Its effect on the public was electric. The air, 
already charged with feeling, was ready to be- 
come impassioned. After its reading the Mis- 
souri Compromise was felt to be monstrous and 
impossible, enforcing the fugitive slave law ab- 
solutely out of the question. Throughout the 
North the book was received with acclamations. 
All classes, rich and poor, young and old, religious 
and irreligious, read it. No one who began it 
could remain unchanged. Echoes of sympathy 
came to the author from all parts of the land ; the 
indignation, pity and distress which had long 
weighed on her soul seemed to pass from her to 
the readers of the book. 

Some of the slaveholders Mrs. Stowe pictured 
as amiable, generous, just, with beautiful traits of 

146 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

character. She admitted fully their temptations, 
their perplexities, their difficulties. She thought 
the abolitionists would say, "Too mild altogeth- 
er!" But the entire South rose against the book, 
in a hurricane of denial and abuse. The daily 
papers featured column after column of minute 
criticism which seemed to leave the book in tatters 
— its facts were false, its art contemptible, its 
moral tone slanderous and anti-Christian. Thou- 
sands of angry and abusive letters poured in on the 
author. 

''Uncle Tom's Cabin met with such a universal 
praising," she said to one of her brothers, "that 
I began to think, Woe unto you when all men 
speak well of you!' But I have been relieved of 
my fears on that score. If there is any blessing in 
all manner of evil said falsely against one, I am 
likely to have it." 

In the North a large element condemned the 
book no less severely — those who thought slav- 
ery just, who feared civil strife, who opposed abo- 
lition. But it was encouraging at least in this re- 
spect: The subject of slavery was now fairly up 
for inquiry before the public mind. The system- 
147 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

atic efforts which had been made for years to pre- 
vent its being discussed were proving ineffectual. 
And on the whole the North accepted the story as 
a fair indictment of the national sin and as a ser- 
mon to them on their part in it. 

For the moral sense of the people was awak- 
ened. The men who had viewed the subject with 
indifference became haters of the system. The 
sleepy church which had lagged behind in the rear 
of progress was stirred as if by a blast from the 
last trumpet. Politicians in Congress trembled, 
statesmen scented danger near. The unpopular 
reformers who had taken their lives in their hands, 
found their ranks reinforced by sturdy enthusias- 
tic recruits. The story told the same appalling 
facts they had been stating in their meetings and 
printing in their papers, but the people would 
neither listen nor read. But Uncle Tom spoke 
with authority, and not as the scribes. 

The marvel of its time, the wonder of succeeding 
generations of readers, this book was the begin- 
ning of the end of slavery. No other individual 
contributed so much to its downfall — Whittier's 
fiery lyrics, Sumner's speeches, Phillips' eloquence, 

148 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

the sermons of Parker and the Beechers, all fell 
short of the accomplishment of Harriet Beecher 
Stowe. She now found herself the most famous 
woman in the world. When she went to 
Washington, after the Civil War had begun, 
Abraham Lincoln on being introduced to her 
asked, "What! are you the little woman that 
caused this great war?" and then took her off to a 
deep window-seat for an hour's talk. 

Invited to England, Mrs. Stowe found her 
journey there almost a royal progress. People 
stood at their doors to see her pass by. Children 
ran ahead of the carriage and offered her flowers. 
"That's her," cried out the newsboys on the street, 
"d'ye see the courls ?" A national penny offering, 
coming from all classes of society, was turned into 
a thousand golden sovereigns and presented to 
her, to be used for the cause of the slave. There 
were many addresses and public meetings and 
demonstrations of sympathy, and from the people 
a perfect ovation. The great of the court, of 
literary England, anti-slavery leaders, united to 
pay her homage. 

One of her gifts she brought back to America, 
149 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

in order to complete its record. The Duchess 
of Sutherland gave her a gold bracelet in the form 
of a slave's shackles, inscribed *'We trust it is a 
memorial of a chain that is soon to be broken." 
Its links bore the dates for the abolition of the 
slave trade and of slavery itself in England and 
her possessions. Later Mrs. Stowe had other 
links marked for the ending of slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, the Emancipation Proclamation, 
and the constitutional amendment abolishing slav- 
ery in this country — changes due largely to her 
work, two of these events coming within a decade 
after Uncle Tom's Cabin was published. 

After her return to America, Mrs. Stowe kept 
on writing — sketches of her experiences abroad, 
essays and stories of New England life, and a sec- 
ond slavery novel called Dred, which the critics 
announced a greater book than Uncle Tom's 
Cabin, but its popular success was less. 

Her whole soul was bound up in the affairs 
of the nation as the crisis of 1861 drew nearer. 
She dreaded war, yet believed that it was the 
red-hot iron that must burn away the nation^s 
disease. 

150 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

"It was God's will," she said, "that this land, 
north, as well as south, should deeply and ter- 
ribly suffer for the sin of consenting to and en- 
couraging the great oppressions of the south ; that 
the ill-gotten wealth which had arisen from strik- 
ing hands with oppression and robbery should be 
paid back in the taxes of war; that the blood of 
the poor slave, that had cried so many years from 
the ground in vain, should be answered by the 
blood of the sons from the best hearthstones 
through all the free states; that the slave mothers 
whose tears nobody regarded should have with 
them a great company of weepers, north and 
south, Rachels weeping for their children and re- 
fusing to be comforted ; that the free states who 
refused to listen when they were told of lingering 
starvation, cold, privation, and barbarous cruelty 
as perpetrated on the slave, should have lingering 
starvation, cold, hunger, and cruelty doing its 
work among their own sons, at the hands of these 
slave masters with whose sins our nation had 
connived." 

Her own son was among the first to enlist 
when Lincoln called for volunteers. "Would you 
have men say that Harriet Beecher Stowe's son 
is a coward?" he replied to a question about his 
going. And she received him back from Gettys- 
burg with a wound in his head from which he 
never recovered. 

151 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

From morning till night, all the days of the 
week, throughout the war Mrs. Stowe worked 
steadily. Years before she had written an appeal 
to the women of America, setting forth the in- 
justice and misery of slavery, begging them to 
work together to have the system abolished. And 
when a strong party arose in England favoring 
the South, she wrote another appeal to her sis- 
ters there, which helped to crystallize public sen- 
timent in favor of abolition and the North, to 
stop the English talk of recognizing the inde- 
pendence of the confederacy and of mediation. 
Its effect on the press and on Parliament was at 
once evident, and all over the kingdom resolu- 
tions were passed for the Union. 

During the trying days of reconstruction 
she worked to secure full rights for the freed- 
men. Living in Florida for the winters, and in 
Connecticut in the summers, both north and south 
she helped to educate the negroes whom she had 
helped to free. 

She still wrote well for many years, though 
she never achieved another exceptional success. 
Thirty books in all she published, some of them 

152 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

admirable, and then claimed a release from active 
service, saying she had written all her thoughts. 
But had Uncle Tom been her only hero, still would 
she live in the history of our country as foremost 
in the movement against slavery. 



CHAPTER XII 

JULIA WARD HOWE 
1819-I9IO 

JULIA WARD was born in New York City, 
and lived most of her life there and in Boston. 
Her father was a wealthy banker, with a fine 
sense of American noblesse oblige. Her mother, 
a woman of scholarly tastes, died when Julia was 
only five. 

Mr. Ward gave his children every possible ad- 
vantage — lessons in French and Italian and 
music, as well as the best English education ; and 
the three daughters had as good a training as the 
three sons. Julia was an unusual child with a 
wonderful memory, and learned very quickly. 
She wrote poems, solemn poems, when a very little 
girl. At nine she listened at school to recitations 
in Italian and handed the amazed instructor a 
composition in that language asking to be allowed 
to join the class — and this request was granted, 
thougl^ the other pupils were twice her age. 

154 



JULIA WARD HOWE 

Life was a serious thing to this child who was 
brought up very strictly, with duty and dignity 
constantly impressed upon her. She heard fre- 
quently stories of her ancestors — colonial gov- 
ernors, Revolutionary officers, Nathaniel Greene, 
and Marion, the "swamp fox of Carolina," — the 
long line passed before the grave little girl, ter- 
rible as an army with banners; but always with 
the trumpet call of inspiration in the thought that 
they belonged to her. 

When she was sixteen her brother returned 
from several years of study in Germany, and a 
new world was opened to her — German philos- 
ophy and poetry, and simultaneously New York 
society ; for at once he made the Ward home one 
of the social centers of the city. Julia became the 
reigning favorite and won everybody by her 
beauty and charm, her tact and ready wit and 
good humor. She continued her studies regularly, 
translating German and French and Italian poems, 
reading philosophy and writing verses. 

Visiting in Boston, she made the acquaintance 
of the literary group there — Longfellow, Emer- 
son, Whittier and Holmes. Charles Sumner was 

155 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

her brother's intimate friend, and one day when 
he and Longfellow were calling on Miss Ward 
they suggested driving over to the Perkins Insti- 
tute for the Blind. 

They had frequently talked to her of its 
founder, Doctor Samuel Gridley Howe, the truest 
hero that America and their century had pro- 
duced, and withal the best of comrades. The 
Chevalier, they named him, a Bayard without fear 
and without reproach. She knew something of 
the six years he had spent in Greece, fighting dur- 
ing the war for independence and serving as 
surgeon-in-chief. She knew of his pioneer work 
for educating the blind, and of his marvelous 
achievement in teaching Laura Bridgeman — the 
little blind and deaf and dumb girl, the statue 
which he had brought to life. 

When the three friends arrived Doctor Howe 
was absent, but before they had finished their 
tour of the building Sumner spied him from the 
window and called out, "There he is now, on his 
black horse." The young lady saw him, "a noble 
rider on a noble steed," and into her life he rode 
that day, like a medieval chevalier, in spite of 

156 



JULIA WARD HOWE 

the fact that he was forty and she only twenty- 
four, in spite of the fact that she had Uved a gay 
social life and he was a serious reformer and 
philanthropist who believed that with the world 
so full of needy people no one had a right to 
luxury. 

Life with a reformer husband was not always 
the care-free thing Julia Ward had known, but 
she had shipped as mate for the voyage, she once 
said with a merry laugh, and added, "I can not 
imagine a more useful motto for married life." 
She realized always that the deepest and most 
steadfast part of herself she owed to Doctor 
Howe. *'But for the Chevalier, I should have 
been merely a woman of the world and a literary 
dabbler." 

With all the cares and joys of a rich home life 
with her six children, she found time for study 
and writing. She published two volumes of 
verse, the first anonymously, but the secret could 
not be kept, for people declared that no one but 
Julia Ward Howe could be its author. 

In addition to his work for the blind, Doctor 
Howe edited an anti-slavery paper called the 
157 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Boston Commonwealth, and his wife helped him 
with that task. Garrison, Sumner, PhilHps, Hig- 
ginson and Theodore Parker became their friends 
and co-workers. To balance the reformers, 
Edwin Booth, Holmes, Longfellow and Emerson 
were frequent guests, drawn by the magnet of 
Mrs. Howe's personality. 

The slavery question became more and more 
acute, and soon the country was plunged into 
civil war. Every earnest woman longed to be of 
some immediate service to the nation and to hu- 
manity. Mrs. Howe was fired with the desire to 
help. Her husband was beyond the age for 
military duty, her oldest son was a lad, the 
youngest child two years old. She could not 
leave home as a nurse. She lacked the practical 
deftness to prepare lint and hospital stores. She 
seemed to have nothing to give, there was noth- 
ing for her to do. 

If only her gift for verses were not so slight! 
If she could but voice the spirit of the hour! 

During the autumn of 1861 Julia Ward Howe 
visited Washington. With friends she went 
to watch a review of the northern troops, at some 

158 



JULIA WARD HOWE 

distance from the city. While the maneuvers 
were going on, a sudden movement of the Con- 
federates brought the pageant to a close. Detach- 
ments of soldiers galloped to the assistance of a 
small body of men in danger of being surrounded 
and cut off from retreat ; while the troops remain- 
ing were ordered back to camp. 

The carriage with the Boston visitors returned 
very slowly to Washington, for soldiers filled the 
roads. There were tedious waits while the 
marching regiments passed them. To beguile the 
time and to relieve the tense situation, they sang 
snatches of popular army songs, and one of these 
was John Brown's Body. 

"Good for you !" called out the passing boys in 
blue, and joined in the chorus with a will, *'His 
soul goes marching on." 

"Mrs. Howe," asked James Freeman Clarke, 
who was in the carriage with her, "why don't you 
write some really worthy words for that stirring 
tune?" 

"I have often wished to do it," she replied. 

And that night her wish was fulfilled. Very 
early, in the gray of the morning twilight, she 

159 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

awoke and as she waited for the dawn the poem 
came to her, Hne by line, till the first stanza was 
finished. Phrase by phrase, and another stanza! 
The words came sweeping over her with the 
rhythm of marching feet. Resistlessly the long 
lines swung into place before her eyes. "Let us 
die to make men free, while God is marching on,'* 
and the Battle Hymn of the Republic was 
achieved. 

'1 must get up and write it down, lest I fall 
asleep again and forget it," she said to herself. 
In the half light she groped for pen and paper 
and scrawled the lines down, almost without look- 
ing — a thing she had often done before, when 
verses came to her in the night. With the words 
put down in black and white, safe from oblivion, 
she went to sleep again, saying drowsily to her- 
self, "I like this better than most things I have 
written." 

The poem was published soon after in the 
"Atlantic Monthly, but aroused little comment. 
The war, with alternate victory and defeat, en- 
grossed public attention. Small heed could be 
paid to a few lines in a magazine. 

i6o 



I 



JULIA WARD HOWE 

But an army chaplain in Ohio read it, liked it, 
and memorized it before putting down the At- 
lantic, Captured at Winchester, where he had de- 
layed to help the doctors with the wounded, this 
chaplain was sent to Libby Prison, in Richmond. 
One large, comfortless room the Union men had, 
with the floor for a bed. The Confederate officer 
in charge told them one night that the South had 
just had a great victory; and while they sat there 
in sorrow old Ben, a negro who sold them papers, 
whispered to one prisoner that this news was 
false, that Cxettysburg had been a great defeat for 
the South. 

The word passed like a flame. Men leaped to 
their feet, and broke into rejoicings. They shout- 
ed and embraced one another in a frenzy of joy 
and triumph. And the fighting Chaplain McCabe, 
standing in the middle of that great room, lifted 
up his fine baritone voice and sang, ''Mine eyes 
have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.*' 
Every voice took up the chorus and "Glory, glory 
hallelujah, our God is marching on," rang 
through Libby Prison. You can imagine the ef- 
fect of the tremendous uplift of the lines. 

i6i 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Released, the fighting chaplain began work for 
the Christian Commission and gave a lecture in 
the hall of representatives in Washington. As 
part of his recent experiences he told this incident 
of their celebration of the battle of Gettysburg, 
and ended by singing Mrs. Howe's poem, as 
only the man who had lived it could sing it. The 
great audience was electrified. Men and women 
sprang to their feet and wept and shouted. Above 
the wild applause they heard the voice of Abra- 
ham Lincoln calling, while the tears rolled down 
his cheeks, "Sing it again !" 

McCabe sang it and the nation took up the 
chorus. The story of this lecture made the hymn 
popular everywhere. It was sung in all the homes 
of the North, at recruiting meetings and rallies. 
The troops sang it in bivouac at night, and on the 
march. The Union army seized on it as its battle 
cry and sang it as they went into action. 

This song, which wrote itself in a wonder- 
ful moment of inspiration, embodied the very sou^ 
of the Union cause. Yet throughout its 
twenty lines there is no hint of sectional feeling. 
It was like an electric shock to the people of the 

162 



JULIA WARD HOWE 

North, the call of a silver trumpet, the flash of a 
lifted sword. It inspired them with hope and 
courage, giving a new faith in the justice of God. 
The strength it brought to millions of men and 
women can- never be measured. 

And in the world war of the twentieth century, 
somewhere in France, it was sung over and over. 
Phrase by phrase, the words fitting new condi- 
tions, as they fitted those of the sixties — ^the light- 
ning of His terrible sword, the fiery gospel writ- 
ten in burnished rows of steel, the trumpet that 
shall never call retreat, sifting out men's hearts 
before His judgment seat, let us die to make men 
free — these apply in any warfare or crusade where 
men are fighting not for self, but for ideals. 

After the war was ended Mrs. Howe continued 
to study, to write essays and poems, to give lec- 
tures, to serve in many great causes. But she is 
best remembered for the message which seemed 
to come to America, through her loving and sor- 
rowing heart, from God himself, in the Battle 
Hymn of the Republic. 



M 



CHAPTER XIII 

MARY A. LIVERMORE 
1 821-1905 

ARY ASHTON RICE was a little Boston 
girl, brought up very strictly. She was a 
restless active child, quick to learn at school, al- 
ways enthusiastic over her tasks. A great favor- 
ite and a leader, she took the part of any unfortu- 
nate child in school ; a cripple, a shabbily dressed 
youngster, one who was ridiculed because of her 
scanty luncheon, found friend and defender in 
Mary. 

There were few playthings for the Rice chil- 
dren and Mary invented a wonderful game called 
*'playing church." In the old woodshed they ar- 
ranged logs for the pews and sticks of wood eked 
out the audience of children. Mary always con- 
ducted the services, praying and preaching with 
the greatest seriousness, while the others listened. 
And her father would say, "I wish you'd been a 
boy, child, we'd have trained you for the minis- 

164 



MARY A. LIVERMORE 

try." None of them ever dreamed that she would 
become a great pubHc speaker and would often 
give addresses in churches. 

Graduating from school at fourteen, she went 
to the Charlestown Female Seminary, and before 
the term closed was asked to take a position made 
vacant by the death of one of the teachers. Re- 
citing and studying out of hours, she managed to 
complete the four-year course in two years and at 
the same time earned the money for this education. 

Then she went as governess in the family of a 
Virginia planter. She had heard Lucretia Mott 
and Whittier lecture, and determined to find out 
for herself whether the facts of slavery were as 
black as they were painted. She came back from 
her two years in Virginia, a stanch abolitionist. 

She served as principal in a Massachusetts high 
school for the next three years, and resigned to 
marry Doctor Livermore, a young minister whose 
church was near the school. She assisted in his 
parish work; she started benevolent and literary 
and temperance societies among the church-mem- 
bers ; and she helped her husband edit a religious 
paper, after they moved to Chicago. She fre- 

165 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

quently wrote stories and sketches for eastern 
magazines, and she sat at the press table in the 
**Wigwam" when Lincoln was nominated for the 
presidency in i860. With her writing, her three 
children, and a quiet, happy home life, doing the 
common duties of every day, it seemed impossible 
that Mary Livermore would ever be helping to 
make American history. 

But Lincoln was elected, Sumter was fired on, 
the nation plunged into civil war, the president 
called for volunteers. 

Summoned to Boston by her father's illness, 
Mrs. Livermore was in the station when the 
Massachusetts troops started south. The streets 
were crowded, the bells rang, the bands played. 
Women smiled and said good-by when their hearts 
were breaking. After the train had pulled out 
several women fainted and Mrs. Livermore stayed 
to help them. 

"He has only gone for three months, you 
know," she said to one little mother. 

"If my country needs him for three months or 
three years, I'm not the woman ta hinder him," 
was the brave reply. "When he told me at noon 

166 



MARY Al LIVERMORE 

to-day he'd enlisted I gave him my blessmg and 
told him to go, for if we lose our country, what is 
there to live for?" 

Seeing such partings Mary Livermore could not 
rest. She had no sons to send. What could 
women do to help ? 

^'Nothing," was the answer from Washington 
when they offered their services ; "there is no place 
for women at the front, no need for them in the 
hospitals." 

The outbreak of the war found the North 
wholly unprepared. Hospitals were few and 
poorly equipped, nurses scarce and not well 
trained; there were no' diet kitchens, no organized 
ways to supply medicines to the sick, to care for 
the wounded. Taxed to the utmost in every di- 
rection, the government could not meet all the 
urgent demands for hospital supplies. Relief so- 
cieties sprang up everywhere, working individ- 
ually, sending boxes to the troops from their 
special localities. 

But what a waste in that haphazard method! 
Perishable freight accumulated till it was a serious 
problem. Baggage cars were flooded with fer- 

167 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

meriting sweetmeats and broken jars of jelly. De- 
caying fruit and demoralized cakes were found 
packed in with clothing and blankets. The sol- 
diers were constantly moving about and many 
packages failed of delivery. The lavish out- 
pouring of the generous people of the North 
meant for a time a lavish waste. If the men's 
answer to Lincoln's call was unparalleled, 
no less remarkable was the response of the 
women; but it needed to be systematized and or- 
ganized like a great business. That was Mary 
A. Livermore's contribution to saving the Union. 
To supplement the work of the federal govern- 
ment the Sanitary Commission was established. 
Mrs. Livermore was president of an aid society in 
Chicago which was one of the first to merge with 
the Commission. And from then till peace came 
she gave her time, her energy, her heart and mind 
and soul to the work of relief. She had enlisted 
not for three months, but for the duration of the 
war. With Mrs. Jane Hoge she served as organ- 
izer and executive not only for all the activities of 
Chicago and Illinois, but for the entire North- 
west. Faithfully she worked to provide for 
i68 



MARY A. LIVERMORE 

the sick and wounded soldiers abundantly, persist- 
ently, methodically. 

What full and varied days she had for those 
four years — opening a great sewing-room in Chi- 
cago where hospital garments were made by the 
wives of soldiers, writing hundreds of letters with 
news of missing men, establishing a system of re- 
lief for their families and for refugees, giving in- 
structions and arranging transportation for 
groups of nurses starting to the front, planning 
ways and means to raise money and supplies, writ- 
ing for her husband's journal and for other pub- 
lications sketches of her "Sanitary" experiences, 
supervising the four thousand aid societies under 
the Chicago office, constantly visiting groups of 
ladies to help them start the work, sending out 
monthly bulletins to keep in close touch with these 
branches, appointing inspectors to report on the 
quality of food and water, and the sanitary ar- 
rangements in camps and hospitals, printing and 
distributing to the army pamphlets on preserving 
health in camp and emergency treatment, initiat- 
ing and overseeing forty soldiers' lodgings — free 
hotels for men passing back and forth separated 

169 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

from their regiments — helping with a pension 
agency, a back-pay agency, a directory of more 
than two hundred hospitals, sending to the battle- 
fields surgeons and instruments, ambulances, anes- 
thetics, and frequently going herself to see that 
the things reached the men and were efficiently 
distributed. 

The work of the women of the Northwest she 
consecrated and organized, making them half- 
soldiers while she kept the soldiers half-civilian by 
bridging over the chasm between military and 
home life. She planned wisely, largely. She 
worked exactly, persistently. In a few months 
army surgeons were enthusiastic in their praise of 
the Sanitary Commission, where at first the whole 
scheme was regarded as quixotic, described as the 
fifth wheel of a coach, and reluctantly agreed to 
only because its plans could do no harm. And the 
people of the North accepted their larger methods 
and gave supplies to any hospital and any men 
needing them. The Commission became the great 
channel through which the bounty of the nation 
flowed to the army. 

Every hour saw boxes arriving at the crowded 
170 



MARY A. LIVERMORE 

rooms of the Chicago branch, where the total 
force of workers was four. Supplies were un- 
packed, assorted, repacked, one kind in a box, and 
sent to Washington or Louisville, the gates to the 
South. A high standard Mrs. Livermore set for 
her aid societies — one box of hospital supplies 
every month, and this standard she upheld 
throughout the war. Such a rigid system was 
insisted on, in receiving and distributing their 
stores, that a very insignificant fraction was lost, 
the vouchers taken at every stage making it pos- 
sible to trace them back to the original con- 
tributors. 

Her first actual war experience was after the 
victory at Donelson. There was a cold rain dur- 
ing the first day's fighting which changed to sleet 
and snow with a bleak wind. There were no 
tents. The men bivouacked in the snow. Hun- 
dreds of them who fell were frozen to the ground 
and had to be dug out. The hospitals were not 
ready for such a stream of patients. There were 
few ambulances. In their bloody frozen uniforms 
wounded men were jolted over the hilly roads in 
springless carts, to be sent to St. Louis. 
171 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Mrs. Livermore spent three weeks in the dif- 
ferent hospitals there and in Cairo, visiting every 
v^ard, reporting careless arrangements, happy to 
see great improvements on her second visit. Al- 
v^ays the men greeted her gladly, stretching out 
their hands to touch hers, talking freely of home 
and friends. 

A year later she was sent down the Mississippi 
with shipments of sanitary stores, to inspect every 
hospital from Cairo to Young's Point, opposite 
Vicksburg. Mud and water she found every- 
where, swamp fever and malaria and scurvy. One 
group of hopelessly sick men she offered to take 
north with her, and Grant made this possible by 
cutting the red tape of the military regime. 

The demand for hospital supplies increased 
steadily, as the army increased in numbers and in 
the scope of its operations. The Sanitary Com- 
mission expended fifty million dollars during the 
war, each battle costing about seventy-five thou- 
sand, and Gettysburg half a million. And in rais- 
ing this vast sum Mrs. Livermore was one of the 
most eificient workers. 

She planned a great Sanitary Fair in Chicago, 
172 



MARY A. LIVERMORE 

to raise twenty-five thousand dollars. The men 
laughed at such an impossibility. But the women 
went ahead. They hired fourteen of the largest 
halls in the city, and went into debt ten thousand 
dollars. They must have gone crazy, said the 
business men, and sent a committee to advise that 
the fair be given up, and adding that when they 
thought the money was needed they would con- 
tribute the twenty-five thousand. But the ladies 
thanked them courteously and continued with 
their plans. 

Such a fair as it was, opening with a great 
parade, "the potato procession," the papers had 
called it, making sport of the scheme. The school 
children were given a holiday. Banks and stores 
were closed. Railroads ran excursions, bells rang, 
guns were fired, the whole city gathered to see the 
parade — children carrying flags, convalescent sol- 
diers in carriages, captured standards of the Con- 
federate armies, and farmers* wagons with mot- 
toes such as "Our father Hes at Stone River" and 
"We buried a son at Donelson/' The flags on the 
horses' heads were edged with black. The women 
who rode beside son or husband were dressed in 

173 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

black. And when the parade stopped in front of 
Mrs. Livermore's house, the crowd was in tears. 

The farmers gave great wagon loads of pota- 
toes and cabbages and onions, for shipment to the 
soldiers. Live stock was sold at auction just out- 
side the main hall. In manufacturers' annex were 
plows and reapers and stoves and trunks and 
washing machines, all for sale. There was a 
curiosity shop, an art gallery whose treasures were 
loaned for the fair, one hall for entertainments 
every evening — concerts, tableaux, lectures by 
Anna Dickinson, the girl orator. Dinner was 
served each day. When it was all over the women 
had cleared a hundred thousand dollars. 

But the fair did far more than raise this large 
sum of money. It was a splendid demonstration 
of loyalty to the Union. It encouraged the sol- 
diers. It kindled an electric generosity and a con- 
tagious patriotism, infusing into widely scattered 
groups of workers an impetus that lasted through 
the war. It captured the attention of the entire 
loyal North for weeks. Its success led to Sani- 
tary Fairs in Cleveland, Boston, Pittsburgh, St. 
Louis, New York and Philadelphia. 

174 



MARY A. LIVERMORE 

Soon after the Chicago fair was over, Mrs. 
Livermore was asked to speak to an aid society in 
Dubuque, Iowa. She left on the night train, 
reaching the Mississippi River at a point where 
there was no bridge and travelers must cross by 
ferry. But the ice in the river had stopped the 
boats. She waited nearly all day. Could she 
keep her engagement ? At last she saw two men 
starting out in a small rowboat, but they refused 
to take her. 

**You'll be drowned," they said. 

*'I can't see that I shall drown any more than 
you!" was her reply, and finally they rowed her 
across. Her determination to accomplish what- 
ever she undertook was one reason for her 
success. 

She had expected to talk informally to a small 
group of women. To her dismay she found that 
great preparations had been made. The largest 
church in Dubuque was filled with an eager crowd, 
the governor and many noted men being present, 
and every county in Iowa represented. And her 
lecture was announced, "A Voice from the 
Front." 

175 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

"I can't do it," she said. "I'm not a public 
speaker. What I had to say to a few ladies is not 
worthy to be called a lecture to this great audience. 
I can't do it !" 

So it was arranged that Colonel Stone, with 
whose regiment she had spent some time near the 
line of battle, should take down brief notes of the 
talk she would have given to the aid society, and 
tell the story to the people. They had started into 
the church to carry out this plan when he said to 
her, *T've seen you at the front, I watched your 
work in the hospital, and I believe you're in ear- 
nest. I've heard you say you'd give anything for 
the soldiers. Now is the time for you to give 
your voice. Shall this opportunity be lost — or 
shall Iowa be enlisted for the work of the Sanitary 
Commission ?" 

*T will try," said Mary A. Livermore. 

The sea of faces blurred before her. She 
seemed to be talking into blank darkness. She 
could not hear her own voice. But suddenly the 
needs of the soldiers crowded upon her mind, the 
destitution, sickness, suffering she had seen at the 
front, — and the people of Iowa must be roused to 
176 



MARY A. LIVERMORE 

do their share. She thought she had spoken half 
an hour, it was nearly two hours. The audience 
listened spellbound, men and women weeping, 
every heart filled with a new patriotism. 

"Now," said the governor when she closed, 
"Mrs. Livermore has told us of the soldiers' needs. 
It is our turn to speak, and we must speak in 
money and gifts." 

Eight thousand dollars were pledged, five hun- 
dred barrels of potatoes, bushels of onions and 
anti-scorbutics of which the army was greatly in 
need. People stayed till eleven o'clock, and the 
leaders till one, planning for an Iowa fair which 
later cleared sixty thousand dollars. 

That was the first public speech of the little 
Mary Rice who had preached to sticks of wood. 
But it was not the last. In hundreds of towns she 
spoke, raising thousands of dollars for hospital 
work and soldiers' homes, helping organize aid 
societies and fairs. 

And after the war, from Atlantic to Pacific, in 
churches and colleges, in city and country, she lec- 
tured to crowded houses, talking on her war expe- 
riences in the "Sanitary," on temperance and 

177 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

woman's suffrage. A most popular speaker she 
was, achieving much for the various causes 
with which she was connected. But most of all 
she is remembered for the wonders accomplished 
in the many-sided work of the Sanitary Commis- 
sion, whose efficient service helped to win the war. 



CHAPTER XIV 

BARBARA FRITCHIE 
1 766- 1 862 

IN DECEMBER, 1766, a daughter was bom in 
the house of a German immigrant, Nicolaus 
Hauer, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and she was 
named Barbara. She had four sisters and broth- 
ers. Their early years were spent in Pennsylvania 
and then the family moved to Frederick, Mary- 
land. 

Barbara went to school for a while in Balti- 
more. Her education was the best that could be 
obtained at that day, for she was "thoroughly 
well-read and could write." When she was 
ninety-two years old she scorned making her mark 
on business papers and proudly signed her name. 

Barbara remembered the discussions that went 
on, when she was a very little girl, about the Bos- 
ton tea party and the English taxes. She was 
nearly ten years old when the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was signed. All her life long she 

179 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

talked with great pride of the success of the colo- 
nists. She remembered many scenes of the Revo- 
lution. Step by step she watched Washington's 
career and shared in the popular rejoicing when 
peace was announced. In 1791 Washington was 
entertained in Frederick and Barbara begged that 
her china be used in pouring the tea at the ball. 
And when Washington died and a memorial 
funeral was held in the town, she was chosen as 
one of the pall-bearers. 

Frederick was a lovely little gem, set in a circle 
of historic hills, like Nazareth — an old town with 
narrow streets and lanes, and houses with queer 
roofs where the shingles had a double lap that 
made them look like old Dutch tiles. There was a 
market square in the center of the town, and on 
the outskirts the stone barracks built during the 
reign of Queen Anne, where Braddock met Washr 
ington and Franklin in council, and where pris- 
oners were kept during the Revolution. 

Here lived Barbara Fritchie, an active capable 
woman, known for her sturdy good sense, her in- 
cessant industry and her intense loyalty to her 
country. Literally she grew with its growth, 

180 



BARBARA FRITCHIE 

watching its progress through the War of 1812, 
the admission of new -states, westward and ever 
westward expanding, till gold was discovered in 
California; and always the slavery question sinis- 
ter and threatening in the background. 

When Barbara was nearly forty she married 
John Caspar Fritchie, a glove maker. They lived 
in a little high-gabled story-and-a-half house on 
West Patrick Street, built of red brick penciled in 
white, with white shutters and two dormer win- 
dows in the long sloping roof. They owned two 
slaves, Nellie and Harry, who were so kindly 
treated that when freed they returned often, as 
children seek the home of their parents. 

Her husband died in 1849 ^^^ Dame Fritchie, 
who never had any children, lived alone in the lit- 
tle house, busy with her many nieces and nephews, 
her knitting and her garden ; a slight figure, under 
medium height, with small penetrating eyes, usu- 
ally dressed in black alpaca or satin, with a 
starched muslin kerchief crossed on her breast, 
and a close white cap. She was always firm and 
decisive, and had indeed the reputation of a sharp 
tongue. 

181 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

Then began the Civil War and Barbara, ninety- 
four years old, was noted for her fearless be- 
havior and her intense outspoken loyalty, when 
loyalty was not the easiest matter in that border 
state. For Frederick had much to endure that 
winter. Soldiers of both armies were constantly 
in the way, skirmishes and duels were frequent 
in the narrow streets. 

The flag was always flying from the Fritchie 
window and Dame Barbara kept busy, helping sick 
soldiers and cheering the despairing Unionists. 
"Never mind," she would say when news of re- 
verses came, "we must conquer sometime." For 
stimulated by the glorious memory of what she 
had lived through, she had a supreme faith that 
the Union must survive. "It will never happen 
that one short life like mine shall see the beginning 
and the end of a nation like this." She would ask 
the shopkeeper, "How do matters look now?" If 
the reports were cheering her joy was evident ; if 
sad, she would say, "Do not be cast down. We 
have seen darker times. Stand firm, it will all 
come right, I know it will. The Union must be 
preserved." 

182 



BARBARA FRITCHIE 

Often the southern troops marched through 
Frederick, tired out, and stopped to rest on the 
porches of private houses. Once they halted in 
front of Barbara Fritchie's home, sat on her steps, 
and went to the spring near by for water. To all 
this she made no objection, but when they began 
to talk in a derogatory way of her beloved coun- 
try, she was at the door in a moment and bade 
them move on, laying about her with her cane in 
the most vigorous manner, crying, ''Off, off, you 
Rebels!" and clearing the porch in a few mo- 
ments. 

With victory alternating between North and 
South, matters dragged on until September of 
1862, when Lee's advance troops under Stonewall 
Jackson spent a week in Frederick, to encourage 
recruiting for the Confederate army. Every 
Union flag was ordered hauled down, and accord- 
ing to one version of the story Barbara Fritchie, 
with the other loyalists, took down her flag and 
hid it in the Bible, saying that no Rebel would 
think of looking for it there. 

Another story tells how on the morning of the 
sixth Dame Barbara's niece went to see her and 

183 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

told her of a rumor that the soldiers would pass 
through the town that day. Presently the child 
ran in and called out in great excitement, "Aunt 
Fritchie, the troops are coming!" 

To the loyal old lady troops meant only one 
army. She heard the sound of marching feet. 
Picking up a silk flag she stepped out on the porch 
and waved it at the men passing. Instantly a 
murmur arose. A captain, riding up to the porch, 
said kindly, "Granny, you had better take your 
flag in the house.'^ 

"I won't do it, I won't," was her reply, as she 
saw for the first time that the passing soldiers 
were dressed in gray. Defiantly she shook the 
flag. The excitement in the ranks increased. 
Threatening murmurs arose. Another officer left 
the line and said, "Old woman, put that flag away, 
or you may get in trouble." 

"I won't," she responded and waved it again. 

Angry shouts came from the men. A third of- 
ficer approaching warned her : 

"If you don't stop that, you'll have that flag shot 
out of your hand." 

The captain, who was still standing near, turned 
184 



BARBARA FRITCHIE 

to him and said angrily, "If you harm a hair of 
her head, I'll shoot you like a dog! March on," 
he commanded sternly, for some of the soldiers 
had lifted their guns. 

On the twelfth of September the southerners 
left Frederick and the Union forces marched in, 
to leave the following day for South Mountain 
and Antietam, It was common talk among the 
northern soldiers that some old lady had kept a 
Union flag flying from her window during the 
Rebels' possession of the town, and that it had 
been fired on. 

As the Federal troops were leaving the city 
General Reno noticed a crowd of people in front 
of Barbara Fritchie's home, reined in his horse 
and heard the story. On being told that she was 
more than ninety years old, he exclaimed, "The 
spirit of 1776!" and his men gave a mighty shout 
that echoed along the street. Some of the boys in 
blue ran to the window and grasped her hand, 
saying, "God bless you, old lady 1" and "May you 
live long, you dear old soul!" 

The general dismounted to shake hands with 
the aged heroine, who gave him some home-made 

185 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

currant wine, served in the blue delft from which 
Washington had drunk. He asked if she would 
sell him the flag. This she refused to do, but gave 
him a bunting flag. 

"Frank," he said to his brother as they rode 
away, "whom does she remind you of ?" 

"Mother," 

The general nodded his head. The next day 
Reno fell at South Mountain, mortally wounded, 
and Barbara's flag was placed on his casket when 
it was sent north to his Massachusetts home. 

Three months later Dame Fritchie died, at four- 
score and sixteen, and was buried in the little 
graveyard of the Reformed Church in Frederick. 

Her story was published in the newspapers and 
gained credence in Maryland and in Washington. 
It was accepted as a fitting symbol of a real and 
great emotion of the people. Mrs. Southworth, 
the novelist, hearing it from friends and from a 
neighbor who was a connection of the Fritchie 
family, sent it to Whittier, adding, "This story 
of a woman's heroism seemed as much to belong 
to you as a book picked up with your autograph 
on the fly-leaf." 

i86 



BARBARA FRITCHIE 

Within a fortnight after its receipt the 
Quaker poet, in his most heroic mood, wrote his 
Barbara Fritchie ballad, remarkable for its lofty 
patriotism. Though he had no military training 
his lines are full of the spirit of army life, the 
tread of marching soldiers, the orders short and 
sharp, a stirring setting for the courageous act of 
an old lady of ninety-six. 

*'It ought to have fallen into better hands," 
Whittier wrote to Mrs. Southworth. "If it is 
good for anything thee deserves the credit of it." 

The poem was sent to the Atlantic Monthly, 
•whose editor replied, "Enclosed is a check for fifty 
dollars, but Barbara's weight should be in gold !" 

The ballad was, and is, most popular through 
the North, for it belongs in the class which the 
world will never willingly let die. But it aroused 
great enmity in the South where people bitterly 
resented the statement that a favorite general had 
ordered his men to fire on an old lady. There 
were many denials of all the details of the story, 
some from members of the Fritchie family — that 
Jackson did not pass the Fritchie house, proved by 
statements from his staff ; that Barbara had waved 

187 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

her flag only to welcome the Union army, and the 
incident had been blended with the story of Mrs. 
Quantrell, a loyal school-teacher who did wave the 
flag in sight of the Confederates; that no such 
person as Barbara Fritchie had ever lived in 
Frederick ! 

Said Whittier years later, 'There has been a 
good deal of dispute about my little poem. That 
there was a Dame Fritchie in Frederick who loved 
the old flag is not disputed by any one. If I made 
any mistake in the details there was none in my 
estimate of her noble character and her loyalty and 
patriotism. If there was no such occurrence, so 
much the worse for Frederick City." 

Across the town from the little churchyard 
where John and Barbara Fritchie lie buried is the 
monument marking the grave of the author of 
The S tar-Spangled Banner. And in both ceme- 
teries the flag floats out, signaling the one to the 
other, fulfilling the lines of the Quaker poet : 

"Over Barbara Frltchie's grave 
Flag of freedom and union, wave! 
And ever the stars above look down 
On thy stars below in Frederick town." 

i88 



c 



CHAPTER XV 

CLARA BARTON 
182I-I912 

LARISSA HARLOWE BARTON was 



bom on December twenty-fifth, in an old 
farmhouse in Worcester County, Massachusetts. 
Her grandfather had fought through the Revolu- 
tion, her father in Mad Anthony Wayne's cam- 
paigns against the Indians. Clara listened to 
many a stirring story of the dangers they had 
met. As they fought their battles over again, she 
learned her country's history and loved it pas- 
sionately. 

The older Barton children were her teachers 
and very rapidly indeed she learned. For she 
went to school at three, able to spell words of 
three syllables, but so shy she could not answer 
questions. Her athletic brother David, whom she 
admired greatly, taught her to ride. 

"Learning to ride is just learning a horse," 
said he. 

189 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

"How can I learn a horse?" asked the Uttle 
sister. 

"Jtist feel the horse a part of yourself, the big 
half for the time being. Here, hold fast by the 
mane," and David lifted her up to a colt's back, 
sprang on another himself and away they gal- 
loped down the pasture — a mad ride which they 
repeated often, till she learned to stick on. In 
after years when she rode strange horses in a 
trooper's saddle, for all-night gallops to safety, 
she was grateful to David for those wild rides 
among the colts. 

Strong in body, alert in mind, Clara Barton 
grew up, never free from shyness unless she was 
busily at work. *The only real fun is doing 
things," she would say. She helped milk and 
churn, she learned to drive a nail straight, to deal 
with a situation efficiently, with quick decision. 

When she was eleven David was seriously in- 
jured by a fall from the roof of a new bam, and 
was for two years an invalid. At once Clara took 
charge, her love and sympathy exf«*essed in untir- 
ing service. In a moment she was changed from 
a lively child, fond of outdoor sports, to a nurse 

190 



CLARA BARTON 

calm and cheerful, full of resources, no matter 
how exacting the doctors' orders were, no matter 
how much David was suffering. The sickroom 
was tidy and quiet. Clara was clear-headed, equal 
to every emergency, always at her post, nothing 
too hard for her to do well and promptly, if it 
would make her brother more comfortable. For 
those two years she had not even one half-holiday, 
so her apprenticeship was thoroughly served. 

"That child's a bom nurse," the neighbors 
would say. And the doctors, agreeing, praised her 
tenderness and patience. Years later thousands 
of men echoed David's words when he spoke of 
her loving care. 

But these two years made her more sensitive 
and self-conscious. Her shyness and unhappi- 
ness made her a real problem to her mother. 

"Give her some responsibility," advised a wise 
family friend, "give her a school to teach. For 
others she will be fearless." 

Far ahead of girls of her age in her studies, at 
fifteen Clara Barton put up her hair and length- 
ened her skirts and went to face her forty pupils. 
"It was one of the most awful moments of my 

191 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

life," she described it long afterward. "I could 
not find my voice, my hand trembled so I was 
afraid to turn the page. But the end of that first 
day proved I could do it." 

Her pluck and strength won the respect of the 
big rough boys, who tried her out on the play- 
ground and found she was as sturdy as they. That 
school was a great success, and for sixteen years 
she taught, winter and summer. 

In Bordentown, New Jersey, no school was pos- 
sible, she heard, because of the lawless children 
who ran wild on the streets. The town officials 
were convinced it was hopeless, no use to make the 
experiment. Here was something to be done, it 
challenged her ! 

"Give me three months, and I'll teach for noth- 
ing," she proposed, her eyes flashing with deter- 
mination. 

In a tumbledown old building she began with 
six gamins, each of whom at the end of the day 
became an enthusiastic advertisement for the new 
teacher. At the close of the school year she had 
an assistant, six hundred children on the roll, and 
a fine new building was erected, the first public 

192 



CLARA BARTON 

school in the state. For Clara Barton had a gift 
for teaching, plus a pioneer zeal. 

When her voice gave out she went to Washing- 
ton for a rest and secured a position in the patent 
office. So she was at the capital when the conflict 
long threatening between North and South devel- 
oped into civil war. Sumter was fired on. The 
time for sacrifice had come. 

In response to Lincoln's call for volunteers 
Massachusetts sent men immediately, and on the 
historic nineteenth of April one regiment was at- 
tacked in the streets of Baltimore by a furious 
mob. With a good many wounded their train 
finally reached Washington and was met by a 
number of sympathetic women, Clara Barton 
among them. In the group of injured soldiers she 
recognized some of her old pupils and friends. At 
the infirmary she helped dress their wounds. 
Nothing was ready for such an emergency. 
Handkerchiefs gave out. Women rushed to their 
homes and tore up sheets for bandages. This was 
Clara Barton's first experience in caring for 
wounded soldiers. 

She wanted them to have the necessities, and all 

193 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

the comforts possible. So she put an advertise- 
ment in a Worcester paper, asking for supplies 
and money for the wounded men of the sixth 
regiment, and stating that she would receive and 
give out whatever was sent. Overwhelming was 
the response of Massachusetts. The food and 
clothing filled her apartment to overflowing and 
she had to rent space in a warehouse. 

This work made a new person of the shy Clara 
Barton who had been a bundle of fears. This was 
no time to be self-conscious. Here was a great 
need, and she knew that she had the ability to 
meet it. 

South of Washington battles were going on. 
Transports left each day with provisions for the 
army of the Potomac, returning with a load of 
wounded soldiers. Clara Barton went to the 
docks to meet them. She moved about, bandaging 
here, giving medicine there, feeding those weak 
from the long fighting and lack of nourishment, 
writing letters home, sick at heart when she saw 
men who had lain on the damp ground for hours, 
whose fever had set in, for whom her restoratives 
and dressings and tender care were too late. 

194 



CLARA BARTON 

If only wounds could be attended to as soon as 
the soldiers fell in battle, she knew that hundreds 
of deaths could be prevented. She must go to the 
front, to the very firing line, though it was against 
all tradition, against all army regulations, against 
public sentiment. For many weeks she met only 
rebuffs and refusals, always the same reply : "No, 
the battle-field is no place for a woman. It is 
full of danger!" 

True — but how great was the need of the men 
at the front, how great the need of each soldier's 
life for the nation ! Help must be brought to them 
when they fell. She laid her plan before her 
father who said, "If you believe that it is your 
duty, you must go to the front. You need not 
fear harm. Every true soldier will respect and 
bless you." 

Without a doubt then she determined to persist 
until she received permission. At last she was 
able to put her request to Assistant-Quartermaster 
General Rucker and asked him for a pass to the 
battle front. 

"I have the stores, give me a way to reach the 
men." 

195 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

''But you must think of the dangers this work 
will bring you. At any time you may be under 
the fire of the enemy's guns." 

"But," was her answer, "I am the daughter of 
a soldier, I am not afraid of the battle-field." She 
described to him the condition of many of the men 
when they reached Washington and added ear- 
nestly, *1 must go to the front, to care for them 
quickly." 

The passport was given her and through the 
weary years of the war she stayed at her post — 
giving medicine to the sick, stimulants to the 
wounded and dying, nourishing food to men faint 
from loss of blood. Working under no society or 
leader she was free to come and go. On sixteen 
battle-fields, during the hot, muggy summer days 
of the long siege of Charleston, all through the 
Wilderness campaign, in the Richmond hospitals, 
there was no limit to her service. And from her 
first day on the firing line she had the confidence 
of the officers and their help and encouragement. 
Wherever there were wounded soldiers who had 
been under her care, Clara Barton's name was 
spoken with affection and with tears. 

196 



CLARA BARTON 

In as far as was possible, word of coming en- 
gagements was sent her in advance, that she might 
be ready with her suppHes. At Antietam while 
shot was whizzing thick around the group of 
workers, she ordered her wagons driven to an old 
farmhouse just back of the lines. Between the 
tall rows of corn, into the barnyard, the worst 
cases were carried. For lack of medical supplies 
the surgeons were using bandages of cornhusks. 

Her supplies quickly unloaded, Clara Barton 
hurried out to revive the wounded, giving them 
bread soaked in wine. The store of bread ran 
out, she had left only three cases of wine. ''Open 
them," she commanded, "give us that, and God 
help us all!" for faster and faster soldiers were 
coming in. She watched the men open the cases. 
What was that around the bottles? Cornmeal! 
She looked at it closely; yes, finely ground and 
sifted. It could not have been worth more if it 
had been gold dust. In the farmhouse they found 
kettles. She mixed the cornmeal with water and 
soon was making great quantities of gruel. All 
night long they carried this hot food up and down 
the rows of wounded soldiers. 
197 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

On one of these trips, in the twilight, she met 
a surgeon tired and disheartened. He had only 
one short candle left, and if men's lives were to 
be saved, the doctors must work all night. 
"Heartless neglect and carelessness," he stormed. 
But Miss Barton had four boxes of candles in her 
stores, ready for just such an emergency. 

Near that battle-field she remained until all her 
supplies were gone. **If we had had more 
wagons," she reported to General Rucker, ''there 
would have been enough for all the cases at An- 
tietam." 

*'You shall have enough the next time," he re- 
sponded. And the government, recognizing the 
value of her service, gave her ten wagons and 
sixty mules and drivers. 

Her work succeeded because she had initiative 
and practical judgment and rare executive ability 
and the power of managing men. When her driv- 
ers were rebellious and sulky, showing little re- 
spect for orders that put them under a woman, she 
controlled them just as she had the rough boys in 
her school. Once she prepared a hot dinner and 
asked them to share it. After she had cleared 

198 



CLARA BARTON 

away the dishes and was sitting alone by the fire, 
awkward and self-conscious they came up to her. 

*'Come and get warm," she welcomed them. 

"No'm, we didn't come for that," said the 
leader. "We come to tell you we're ashamed. 
Truth is, lady, we didn't want to come. We knew 
there was fightin' ahead, an' we ain't never seen a 
train with a woman in charge. Now we've been 
mean and contrary all day long, and here you've 
treated us like we was the general and his staff, 
and it's the best meal we've had in two years and 
we shan't trouble you again." 

The next morning they brought her a steaming 
hot breakfast and for six months remained with 
her, through battles and camps and marches, 
through frost and snow and heat, a devoted corps 
of assistants, always ready for her orders. They 
helped her nurse the sick and dress the wounded 
and soothe the dying, and day by day they them- 
selves grew gentler and kinder and more tender. 

Once Clara Barton worked for five days and 

nights with three hours of sleep. Once she had a 

narrow escape from capture. Often in danger it 

seemed as though she had a special protection that 

199 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

she might save the lives of others. Stooping to 
give a wounded soldier a drink of water, a bullet 
whizzed between them, tearing a hole in her sleeve 
and ending the boy's life. 

She gave her help to men who had fought 
on either side. They were suffering, they needed 
her, that was enough. No man is your enemy 
when he is wounded. She leaned over a dying of- 
ficer in a hospital; a Confederate looked up into 
her kind face and whispered : 

"You have been so very good to me. Do not 
cross the river, our men are leading you into an 
ambush. You must save yourself." 

But his warning was unheeded when later that 
day the hero-surgeon who was opening an emer- 
gency dressing-station across the river, asked her 
help. She went over to Fredericksburg where 
every stone wall was a blazing line of battle. A 
regiment came marching down the street. She 
stepped aside. Thinking she must be a terrified 
southerner, left behind in their hurried flight, the 
general leaned from his saddle to ask : 

* 'You're alone and in great danger, madam. 
Do you want protection?" 
200 



CLARA BARTON 

'Thank you, but I think"— Clara Barton 
looked up at the ranks of soldiers marching past — 
"I think, sir, Fm the best protected woman in 
the United States!" 

"That's so, that's so," cried out the men and 
gave her a great cheer that was taken up by line 
after line till it sounded like the cheering after 
a victory. 

*T believe you're right, madam," said the gen- 
eral, bowing low, and galloped away. 

Over the battle-field a sharp wind was blowing. 
The suffering men lay shivering and half frozen 
in the bitter cold. Some were found famished 
under the snow. Clara Barton had all the 
wounded brought to one place and great fires 
built up. But that was not heat enough to warm 
them. What to do? She discovered an old 
chimney not far away. "Tear it down," she 
ordered, "heat the bricks and place them around 
the men." Soon she had kettles of coffee and 
gruel steaming over the fires, and many a life 
she saved at Fredericksburg. 

As the war drew to an end President Lincoln 
received hundreds and hundreds of letters from 

201 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

anxious parents asking for news of their boys. 
The Hst of missing totaled sixty thousand. In 
despair the president sent for Miss Barton, think- 
ing she had more information than any one else, 
and asked her to take up the task. A four years' 
task it proved to be. She copied infirmary and 
burial lists. She studied records of prisons and 
hospitals. At Andersonville she laid out the na- 
tional cemetery and identified nearly thirteen 
thousand graves. She succeeded in tracing and 
sending definite word of thirty thousand men. 
From Maine to Virginia the soldiers knew her. 
Through the whole country her name became a 
household word. 

Her strong will had held her body to its work 
during the long war and for this tracing service 
afterward. Then the doctors insisted she must 
rest and sent her to Switzerland for change of 
scene. After a month when she was beginning 
to feel some improvement, she had callers one 
day representing the International Red Cross 
Society. ^ 

"What is that?" asked Clara Barton. 

And they explained — ^how a Swiss, visiting the 
202 



CLARA BARTON 

battle-field of Solferino and seeing thousands of 
French and Austrians wounded, inadequately 
cared for, had planned a society for the relief of 
soldiers. Its badge, a red cross on a white 
ground, would give its workers protection from 
both armies, and they would help all persons 
without regard to their race or religion or uni- 
form — exactly the principle on which she had been 
working, and to-day the very heart of the Red 
Cross plan. Already, they said, the society was 
formed and twenty- two nations had joined it. 
But the United States, though invited twice, had 
done nothing. They asked her help. 

Three days afterward the Franco- Prussian 
War began and soon Clara Barton was again 
at the front. With the German army she en- 
tered Strasburg after the siege. On every hand 
were sick and wounded soldiers, women and chil- 
dren homeless and ragged and starving. Relief 
work started, she went to Paris on the outbreak 
of the revolution there. And this work made 
her enthusiastic about the Red Cross. For at 
once she felt the difference — she saw the new 
society accomplish in four months, with system 
203 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

and trained workers, what our country had failed 
to do in four years. What a contrast — supplies in 
plenty, wounds dressed at once, cleanliness, com- 
fort, wherever the white flag with the red cross 
was flying, instead of mistakes, delays, needless 
suffering, lives sacrificed. She said to her- 
self, "If I live to return to America, I will try 
to make them understand what the Red Cross 
and the Geneva Treaty mean." 

She succeeded, though it was a task of 
years. She found officials indifferent, hard to 
convince, clinging to the tradition and prejudice 
that forbade any alliance with foreign countries, 
and saying, "Why make plans for another war? 
We'll never have it!'* 

But in March, 1882, the treaty was signed. 
Clara Barton became the first president of the 
American Red Cross Society, an oflice she held 
for twenty-two years. It was her suggestion that 
they be prepared to meet any emergency and give 
relief in^ time of peace as well as war. It 
was hei" influence that carried this American 
amendment in the International Red Cross Con- 
gress. 

, 204 



CLARA BARTON 

Many have been the calamities where the Red 
Cross has given aid — two wars, floods in the Ohio 
and Mississippi Rivers, the Texas famine, the 
Charleston earthquake, the disaster at San Fran- 
cisco, Florida's yellow fever, the Johnstown 
flood, forest fires — these are a few of the urgent 
calls in our own land; and abroad the sufferers 
in the Russian and Chinese famines, in Armenia 
and South Africa, bear witness to her care. 

Eighty years old, she went herself to Galveston. 
At seventy-seven McKinley sent her to carry re- 
lief to the starving Cubans. And during the 
Spanish War she nursed American and Cuban 
and Spanish soldiers, once in a storm repeating 
her Antietam experience with hot gruel ! 

Vast sums of money, poured out by the gen- 
erous American people, were placed at her dis- 
posal for relief to the suffering and destitute. 
A sufficient sum in ready cash she always kept 
on hand, in case a telegram came when the banks 
were closed; for there must be no delay in the 
Red Cross's starting on its mission of mercy. 

The world over Clara Barton was known and 
loved and honored. The German emperor gave 
205 



WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

her the order of the iron cross, which at that time 
had been awarded only for heroism on the battle- 
field. Queen Victoria herself pinned an English 
decoration on her dress. The Duke of Baden, 
Serbia, the Prince of Jerusalem all gave her 
honors; and her home was decorated with the 
flags of all the nations. 

Dying at ninety, Clara Barton, retiring 
and bashful, had given fifty years of service to 
suffering humanity, working always on the firing 
line. David's born nurse became head nurse to 
all the nation. The angel of the battle-field, as the 
soldiers loved to call her, became the country's 
angel of mercy. 

And in the Red Cross Society, building perhaps 
better than she knew, Clara Barton gave the op- 
portunity for every American citizen, man or 
woman or little child, to share in her work of 
love and mercy. 



EPILOGUE 

Thus ends the story of these women who 
helped to make the history of our country. It is 
a record of courage and of service, of splendid 
achievement. And these fifteen women by no 
means tell the whole story. The contribution of 
each could be duplicated, in less degree, many 
times. They are but typical of countless women 
who have been true American patriots. 

The exploring and settling of our country lasted 
for three centuries, the building of the nation 
is not yet finished. There is work for the women 
of to-day, if they would be worthy inheritors of 
these fifteen, to shape the present true, for the 
generations to come after. Making history offers 
a wide range of service, for heroism wears many 
forms, as these brief stories show. But it is of 
the greatest importance to the nation that its ideals 
of heroism shall be high and true. 

Every woman can be a soldier faithful, brave 
and loyal. We of to-day and of to-morrow must 
stand shoulder to shoulder with the inspired 
women of the past, to express the best in woman- 
hood, to work for the highest ideals. 
207 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



CHAPTER I 



Eggleston — A First Book in American History, 

23-41. 
Holland — Historic Girlhoods, 92-106. 
Jenks — Captain John Smith. 
Seelye and Eggleston — Pocahontas. 
Smith — The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John 

Smith. 
Sweetser — Ten American Girls from History, 1-35. 

CHAPTER II 

Bouve — American Heroes and Heroines, 13-31. 
Brooks — Demies and Daughters of Colonial Days, 

1-29. 
Eggleston — The Beginners of a Nation, 326-341. 
Foster, ed. — Heroines of Modern Religion, 1-22. 
Hart — American History Told by Contemporaries, 

I, 382-387. 

CHAPTER III 

Harrison — The Stars and Stripes, 60-64. 
Horner — The American Flag. 
Schauffler— F% Day, 50-58 and 61-66. 
Tappan — The Little Book of the Flag. 

211 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



CHAPTER IV 



Brooks — Century Book of the American Revolu- 
tion, 87-89. 
Hemstreet — The Story of Manhattan. 
Ullmann — Landmark History of New York. 
[Wilson — New York Old and New. 

CHAPTER V 

Bouve — American Heroes and Heroines, 120-128. 

Brooks — Century Book of the American Revolu- 
tion, 130-135. 

Journal of American History, 5:84 (1911). 

Stockton — Stories of New Jersey. 

Sweetser — Ten American Girls from History, 71- 
85. 

CHAPTER VI 

Brooks — Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days, 

133-167. 
Herbert — The First American — His Homes and 

His Households. 
Lossing — Mary and Martha Washington. 
Wharton — Martha Washington. 

CHAPTER VII 

Brady — Border Fights and Fighters, 151-163. 
Purcell — Stories of Old Kentucky, 

212 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



CHAPTER VIII 



Brooks — First across the Continent. 

Dye — The Conquest. 

Holland — Historic Adventures, 21-58. 

Journal of American History, 1 :468 (1907). 

Laut — Pathfinders of the West. 

Lewis and Clark — Journals. 

Schultz — Bird Woman (written by a man adopted 

by the Black feet Indians, from accounts given 

him by friends of Sacajawea). 

CHAPTER IX 

Bolton — Famous Leaders among Women, 123-158. 
Bouve — American Heroes and Heroines, 171-180. 
Brooks — Dames and Daughters of the Young Re- 
public, 1-42. 
Holland — Historic Girlhoods, 203-216. 
Madison — Memoirs and Letters. 
Tappan — American Hero Stories, 224-230. 
Todd — Tlw Story of Washington. 

CHAPTER X 

Bolton — Girls Who Became Famous, 33-49. 
Foster, ed. — Heroines of Modern Religion, 88-114. 
Hallowell — James and Lucretia Mott — Life and 

Letters. 
Morris — Heroes of Progress in America, 219-225. 
213 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



CHAPTER XI 



Adams and Foster — Heroines of Modern Progress, 
89-119. 

Bolton — Girls Who Became Famous, 1-17. 

Crowe — Harriet Beecher Stowe : Biography for 
Girls. 

Fields — Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

Stowe — Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe (by her 
son). 

.Wright — Children's Stories in American Litera- 
ture, 188-202. 

CHAPTER XII 

Adams and Foster — Heroines of Modern Progress, 

178-214. 
Bolton — Famous Leaders among Women, 272-303. 
Bristol— Life of Chaplain McCabe, 192-203. 
Howe — Reminiscences. 
Parkman — Heroines of Service, 117-147. 
Richards and Elliott — Julia Ward Howe (by her 

daughters). 
Wade — The Light Bringers, 142-171. 
Wright — Children's Stories in American Literature, 

book 2, 212-221. 

CHAPTER XIII 

Bolton — Girls Who Became Famous, 50-67. 
Livermore — My Story of the War. 

2X4 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Livermore — The Story of My Life, chapter 28. 
Our Famous Women, 386-414. 
Whiting — Women Who Have Ennobled Life, 53- 
85. 

CHAPTER XIV 

Bookman, 13:418 (1901). 

Pennsylvania German, 1906. 

Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 27. 



CHAPTER XV 

Adams and Foster — Heroines of Modern Progress, 

149-177. 
Barton — The Red Cross in Peace and War. 
Bolton — Successful Women, 198-223. 
Epler — Life of Clara Barton. 
Parkman — Heroines of Service, 59-85. 
Sweetser — Ten American Girls from History, 143- 

173. 
Wade — The Light Bring ers, 64-111. 



INDEX 



INDEX 

Barton, Clara: nurse at eleven, 1901; suc- 
cess as teacher, 191 -3; cares for first wounded 
soldiers in Civil War, 193; distributes sup- 
plies, 194; receives permission to go to front, 
195-6; war record, 196-201; appointed to 
search for missing, 201-2; serves under Red 
Cross in Franco-Prussian War, 203-4; starts 
Red Cross in America, 204; its president for 
twenty-two years, 204; service in disasters, 
205 ; honors paid her, 205-6. 

Battle Hymn of the Republic, 159-63. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 132, 136, 144. 

Bishop (Washington's body-servant), 56-8, 67. 

Burr, Aaron, 45, 104-5. 

Chaboneau, Toussaint, 81-7, 91, 96-8. 

Dale, Governor, 11, 12. 

Declaration of Independence, iii, 120, 170. 

Fritchie, Barbara: saw four wars, 179-82; mar- 
riage, 181 ; her loyalty and faith when Civil 
War broke out, 182; troops in Fredericksburg, 
182-3; different versions of flag story, 183-5; 
Whittier's poem, 186-8. 
Fugitive slave law, 128-9, i3S'40> 146- 
Garrison, William Lloyd, 118, 122, 125, 131. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 45, 62,. 
Harlem, battle of, 45-6. 
Howe, General, 41* 43-6. 
219 



INDEX 

Howe, Julia Ward: ancestry, 155; carefully 
educated, 154; a social favorite, 155; mar- 
riage, 1 56-7 ; longed to help in Civil War, 1 58 ; 
how the Battle Hymn of the Republic was 
written, 159-60; how Chaplain McCabe popu- 
larized it, 161-2, 

Hutchinson, Anne: voyage to America, 18-9; 
popularity, 20-1 ; her meetings for women, 
21-3; church and state, 22-4; trial and banish- 
ment, 24-8; massacred by Indians, 28. 

Jackson, Stonewall, 183, 187. 

Jamestown colony, 7-1 1, 16-7. 

Johnson, Jemima: Indians attack frontier settle- 
ment, 72-3 ; imperative need of water, 74-5 ; 
volunteers to bring it, 75-6; scheme succeeds, 
76-7; attack repulsed, 77-8. 

Jones, Paul, 36. 

Lafayette, 53. 

Lewis and Clark Expedition, 81-5, 89-96, 99. 

Libby Prison, 161. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 149, 162, 201-2. 

Livermore, Mary A. : first-hand experience with 
slavery, 165; helped husband in church and 
editorial work, 165-6; organized and systema- 
tized relief work of Northwest, 167-72; Sani- 
tary fairs, 172-4; first public speech, 175-7. 

McCabe, Chaplain, 161-2. 

Madison, Dolly: girlhood in Virginia and Phila- 
delphia, 101-2; marries John Todd, 103; 
death of husband and baby, 103-4; popularity, 
104, 107; marries Madison, 105-6; mistress of 
220 



INDEX 

White House for sixteen years, 107, 113; 
British attack Washington, 108-11; saves 
Stuart portrait of Washington and Declara- 
tion of Independence, iio-i; adventures in 
flight from city, 11 1-3; homage paid her, 114. 

Madison, James, 104-8, 11 2-4. 

Martineau, Harriet, 121. 

Mataoka, i, 2, 6. 

Monmouth, battle of, 50-2. 

Morris, Robert, 33, 35. 

Mott, Lucretia : childhood at Nantucket, 115; 
early interest in slavery, 117; preaches in 
Quaker meeting-houses, 117-20, 126-7, 165; 
member of anti-slavery societies, 120-1; dele- 
gate to London convention, 121 ; excluded 
from its meetings, 12 1-2; abused and at- 
tacked, 123-7; her part in Dangerfield trial, 
128-9; pioneer work for aboHtion, 130-1. 

Mount Vernon, 59, 63, 66-8, 70, 71. 

Murray, Mary Lindley: delays Howe's march 
across Manhattan Island, 43-5; saves patriot 
army, 45-6. 

Phillips, Wendell, 118, 121, 131. 

Pitcher, Molly (Mary Ludwig Hays) : child- 
hood on farm, 47; accompanies husband to 
war, 48-50; carries water for soldiers, 51; 
takes husband's place at cannon, 51-2; honors 
given her, 52-4; monument, 54. 

Pocahontas: saves John Smith, 4-6; how she 
got her name, i, 2, 6; befriends Jamestown 
colony, 7; taken prisoner, 8-10; marries Rolfe, 
II ; visits England, 12-5 ; descendants, 16. 
221 



INDEX 

Powhatan, 2-6, 8-13. 
Putnam, Israel, 41-6. 

Red Cross, 202-6. 

Rolfe, John, 11, 12, 15. 

Ross, Betsy: apprenticed, 30; marriage, 30; 
reputation as needlewoman, 31, 33; widowed, 
32 ; five-pointed star, 35 ; her flag adopted by 
Congress, 35-7. 

Ross, Colonel George, 33. 

Sacajawea (Bird-woman) : taken prisoner, 80-1 ; 
marries Chaboneau, 81 ; meets Lewis and 
Clark, 81-2; engaged as interpreter, 82; birth 
of son, 82; heroine of expedition, 83-4; saves 
papers and instruments, 84-5; illness, 85-6; 
escape from cloudburst, 86-7; guides expedi- 
tion, 88, 92-3; meets friend and brother, 89- 
90 ; persuades tribe to help white men, 90, 92 ; 
bargaining with Indians, 91; resourcefulness, 
94; rapid return trip, 95-6; bids farewell to 
leaders, 96; later years and death on Indian 
reservation, 98-9; memorials, 99-100. 

Sanitary Commission, 168-72. 

Smith, John, 2-8, 14. 

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 122. 

Stars and Stripes, 34-7. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher: early interest in com- 
positions, 133-4; moves to Cincinnati, 134; 
marries Professor Stowe, 135; discussions 
over slavery, 135-7; her own experiences with 
negroes, 136-7, 141-2; writing, 135, 138; ex- 
citement over fugitive slave bill, 138-9; how 
222 



INDEX 

Uncle Tom's Cabin was written, 139-43; its 
reception and results, 144-9; translations, 145; 
trip to England, 149-50; helps change public 
sentiment in England during Civil War, 152. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin, 139-50. 

Valley Forge, 62, 64-6. 

Washington, George, 32-5, 39, 41, 42, 46, 49-54, 
56-71, iio-i, 180. 

Washington, Martha: education, 55; first meet- 
ing with Washington, 56-7; marriage, 57-8; 
life at Mt. Vernon, 59, 67; interest in public 
affairs, 60, 69-70; patriotic sacrifices, 59, 63-4; 
winters spent at headquarters, 61-6; work for 
soldiers, 63-6; at Valley Forge, 62, 64-6; first 
lady of the land, 68-71. 

Whittier, John G., 148, 186-8. 

Williams, Roger, 2^, 28. 

Winthrop, John, 20, 24-7, 29. 



BO 1.1> 






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